The Western Cape’s police commissioner has taken legal advice following threats of court action over his English-only language policy.
”The good news is the commissioner of police has … gone to the state attorney in Cape Town, who has asked to study our documents and legal opinions,” the director of the Centre for Constitutional Rights of the FW de Klerk Foundation, Paul Hoffman, said on Monday.
Hoffman said the foundation will allow the other side to study its case and expects a response within ”a week or so”.
The foundation said on Thursday that if had not received a formal response from provincial commissioner Mzwandile Petros by Monday, it would seek a court order forcing him to bring his language policy in line with national police requirements.
The matter came to light after a group of Afrikaans-speaking members of the police approached the foundation when they felt their language rights were being trampled. Afrikaans is the first language of two-thirds of the Western Cape’s population.
Hoffman said the provincial police’s Deputy Commissioner Ganief Daniels earlier on Monday told radiosondergrense that police are sensitive to the rights of Afrikaans speakers and that, in the near future, new standing orders will see these sensitivities taken into account.
The foundation said it hopes the problem will see a ”negotiated settlement”.
Hoffman said that according to the orders issued by the Western Cape South African Police Service, its members should use only English for radio communication, training of student constables, the completion of all official registers, criminal dockets and enquiry files, in all meetings ”where language is an issue”, in the minutes of such meetings, in all written correspondence, in all circulars for general information and in press releases.
Pointing out problems with the policy, Hoffman said that were an Afrikaans police officer to be cross-examined in court using his English notes, he would struggle to give a good account of himself.
In a statement issued on Thursday, Daniels said it was decided to use English internally for practical purposes, because of the diversity of race groups in the service.
However, he went on to deny that Petros issued an instruction that South African Police Service members should only communicate in English at all meetings, and that all documentation and registers be completed in English.
”I wish to strongly deny this. The provincial commissioner has never at any stage issued a verbal or written instruction of such a nature.”
Hoffman said the English-only policy is illegal since it ignores national police standing orders that at least two languages be used. It is also unconstitutional as it prevented Afrikaans and other native-language speakers from using their languages. — Sapa