Luphert Chilwane
18 September 2009
Johannesburg — ABOUT 65% of prisoners released on medical parole were still alive, and the medical parole system should be reviewed, Correctional Services Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa- Nqakula said yesterday.
Medical parole shot to prominence earlier this year with the release of President Jacob Zuma 's former financial adviser, Schabir Shaik, on medical parole. He has since reportedly been seen in restaurants and driving himself around Durban, leading to questions about the legitimacy of his parole.
Opposition MPs have often claimed that prisoners who did not have similar political connections die in prison of terminal diseases without being considered for parole.
Mapisa-Nqakula said the system was full of shortfalls and required urgent attention.
She was speaking at a summit on the review of parole boards yesterday in Johannesburg.
"The tricky matter here is that the provision of the Correctional Services Act on medical parole has no reference to people who are sick, it gave reference to those who are terminally ill.
"It (the act) says a person who should be granted medical parole should be those who are about to die, but how can you be certain that they would die?" she said.
The minister said it was difficult to bring a recovered prisoner back to prison years after being released on medical parole.
She told of an example mentioned at the conference of a woman released on medical parole and less than two months later she committed another crime and returned to prison, but she was now also pregnant.
The matter was further complicated by the difficulty in returning prisoners who had been granted medical parole to prison once their conditions improved.
When asked whether the system was open to favouritism, as was widely believed regarding the Shaik case, she said: "I can't be defensive and say that I rule that out."
Mapisa-Nqakula said the purpose of the summit was to identify the weaknesses and strengths of the parole system and begin to put in place solutions. "It is incorrect for us to say the system is perfect, it has only been in place for four years."
She said regarding Shaik's parole, there could have been other inmates as sick as he was who should also have been released by now.
At the summit, the chairmen and deputy chairmen of SA's 52 parole boards discussed victim involvement in granting parole, training for parole boards, medical parole and possible amendments to legislation.
The minister said the inspecting judge of prisons would also have an opportunity to review cases before the release of prisoners on parole. With Sapa
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