Johannesburg — LOBBY group AfriForum's planned legal bid to force the government to declare crime a national crisis is unlikely to succeed, legal experts say.

T rade union Solidarity's civil rights organisation has contracted the Institute for Security Studies to compile a research report on the manner in which the government has been executing its constitutional duty to curb crime.

AfriForum plans to use the report as evidence in its bid to obtain a court order that would compel the government to implement its crime fighting and prevention strategies.

AfriForum CEO Kallie Kriel said that the group was confident that its court action was the only way to make the government "do their job".

"It is the only way to force them to implement what they said they will ."

However, legal experts were not convinced that AfriForum's bid would yield results. Advocate Kaya Zweni said that "it is a mountain to climb" to obtain such an order, as the government could successfully defend its case in court.

"Declaring crime a crisis is another matter. The government may say crime is under control. The government may present evidence in court and say this is what we have done."

Rudolph Jansen, a former attorney with Lawyers for Human Rights, said although he had not read the papers that would be filed in court, AfriForum's case would be very difficult to formulate.

"No lawyer will formulate a case like that," he said.

Article 12(1)(c) of the Bill of Rights, which states that every individual has the right to be free from violence, did not necessarily provide for the right to go to court, Jansen said.

Kriel said President Thabo Mbeki and S afety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula would be named as respondents in the case .

He said Mbeki had refused to acknowledge that SA was facing a crime crisis. "When the African Peer Review Mechanism report stated that there were unacceptable levels of crime in SA, the president criticised it and said it was a populist view."

He said the institute's research report would be handed to AfriForum's lawyers at the end of this month. "Our lawyers will study the report and file papers in court soon after that."

AfriForum would depend on donations from citizens to fund its case, Kriel said.