Pretoria – Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa says the appeal to the SA Human Rights Commission ruling on the death of Free State protester Andries Tatane is not linked to the court case.
Tatane died on 13 April 2011 during a service delivery protest in Ficksburg. Last week, the Ficksburg Regional Court acquitted all seven policemen accused of the death of Tatane.
The SAHRC had earlier found, among others, that police had used excessive force in handling the protest, a ruling the ministry is appealing. SAPS asked that the SAHRC report be set aside or it be referred back for further investigation so that they could have an opportunity to make representations or that the investigation be held in abeyance pending the outcome of the criminal case.
Mthethwa noted that an appeal document was lodged internally by the South African Police Service (SAPS) with the SAHRC. It was filed on 14 February 2013 but the decision was taken in December 2012 to lodge the appeal, “precisely because issues such as crowd control, policing of public protests are operational functions which are implemented by the department, not the ministry”.
“Nonetheless, there has been some misrepresentation in the media reports about this issue, more so as the reporting is wrongly linked to the court’s decision on the case, where the accused were acquitted.
“The focus of the appeal is not with regard to the findings themselves or the merits of the case, as has been widely and incorrectly reported,” said the minister.
The appeal sought to “clarify” SAPS’s willingness to cooperate with SAHRC process. However, because the matter was before both criminal and civil courts, SAPS needed to respect these pending court processes.
“What the appeal mainly focuses on are the SAHRC recommendations, particularly in effectively managing public protests,” said Mthethwa.
SAPS had argued that processes had already been in place to deal with these recommendations, in so far as they related to improvements around crowd control measures, systems and protocols, Mthethwa said.
Police had further argued that they had not had an opportunity to have sight and respond to the entire complaint. – SAnews.gov.za
