Police have not echoed the willingness shown by the Scorpions to work together and create mechanisms to do so, it emerged on the final day of public hearings at the Khampepe Commission in Pretoria. ”We believe no number of committees can solve the problems until the institutional and constitutional problems have been solved,” said advocate Philip Jacobs for the South African Police Service.

Scorpions head Leonard McCarthy told the Khampepe commission on Wednesday it would be a ”nightmare” to relocate the unit and it should be left in place and enhanced by legislation. ”The DSO [Directorate of Special Operations] is a good institution,” he told the commission on its eighth day of public hearings.

Sensitive information falling into the hands of Scorpions investigators may be abused to the detriment of the country, the Khampepe commission heard in Pretoria on Tuesday. The National Director of Public Prosecutions, Vusi Pikoli, conceded that it is possible that his organisation is a threat to national security.

Contrasting arguments on the future of the Scorpions were submitted by a police union and the Democratic Alliance at the Khampepe commission in Pretoria on Monday. The Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union told the commission: ”The need for the Scorpions no longer exists.”

Two organisations came out against a merger of the Scorpions and the police in oral submissions at the Khampepe commission in Pretoria on Friday. The Foundation for Human Rights held that incorporating the Scorpions into the police service would be detrimental to South Africa’s ability to combat crime.

Problems between the Scorpions and the police are among the inevitable challenges of managing a society’s law enforcement, the Institute of Security Studies told the Khampepe Commission on Friday. The commission entered its fifth day of public hearings into the future of the Scorpions, which operates as an elite crime-busting unit.