No Shaik parole review

2009-06-30 22:03

Cape Town - New Correctional Services Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula says she has no intention of reviewing convicted fraudster Schabir Shaik's medical parole.

Briefing the media at Parliament on Tuesday, ahead of debate on her department's budget vote, she said there was no evidence to warrant a review of the decision on the matter by her predecessor, Ngconde Balfour.

Shaik, a former financial advisor to then deputy president Jacob Zuma, was found guilty in 2005 of fraud and corruption and sentenced to 15 years in prison, but was controversially released in March this year on medical parole, on the grounds he was terminally ill.

So many questions

Mapisa-Nqakula on Tuesday told journalists she had received a number of questions on the matter since she assumed office last month.

"I do believe that the minister must have taken into consideration a whole lot of issues before he could actually reach that kind of decision.

"And for now, there are no indications, and there is no evidence which has come to the fore, which would make me take a decision to review. So for now, I am not reviewing, nor am I reviewing any other decision with relation to parole that has been taken by the minister," she said.

Speaking later during the debate, Mapisa-Nqakula noted that Section 79 of the Correctional Services Act - in terms of which a determination can be made to release an inmate on medical grounds - had been "the subject of some controversy for the past year".

It was limited to an offender who was diagnosed as being in the final phase of a terminal disease.

Parole board to review application

I have requested the Correctional Supervision and Parole Review Board, through its chairperson Judge [Siraj] Desai, to review the application of this section and to make proposals to me with regard to medical parole in a much broader sense.

"This task will include the setting of guidelines for the application of the legislation as it stands in order to ensure a degree of consistency.

"For instance, it may well be advisable to appoint medical professionals to advise correctional supervision and the parole review boards in these matters," she said.
 

- SAPA