Apr 13, 2010 6:42 PM|
National Director of Public Prosecutions Menzi Simelane shrugged off suggestions that he had demoted independent-minded prosecutors and breached the law by telling the state not to oppose bail for murder-accused musician Jub Jub.
In a briefing to Parliament's portfolio committee on justice, Simelane defended his right to instruct prosecutors how to handle cases.
"It is important to understand that there will be a lot of intervention in many cases and all of that intervention is informed by the law and it is lawful.
"It is not proper to say the role of the NDPP is not to get involved in the detail of cases. It would be an irresponsible role if the NDPP is not involved in cases, and secondly I can assure you, without fear of contradiction that I am not going to be the NDPP that is not involved in the detail of the cases because that is not only my job but it is an important thing to do to ensure that things go according to plan."
He was reacting to a suggestion from Democratic Alliance MP Dene Smuts that he had acted unlawfully by ordering chief state prosecutor of the West Rand, Andre Lamprecht, not to oppose bail for Jub Jub.
The musician, whose real name is Molemo Maarohanye, faces charges of murder, reckless driving and driving under the influence, following a car accident in Soweto on March 8 that left four schoolboys dead.
Lamprecht opposed bail. He was then redeployed and, following an outcry, reinstated.
Other prosecutors have complained that they suffered a similar fate since Simelane became national prosecutions chief in December.
Andre Laubscher, chief prosecutor in Northern KwaZulu-Natal died of a heart attack earlier this month, about three days after he was redeployed as a prosecutor in the Pietermaritzburg Magistrates' Court.
Said Simelane: "I think it has been grossly misunderstood. Nobody has been demoted. Nobody has filed a complaint to say that they have been demoted so I think there is some misunderstanding there."
He said it was wrong to say that somebody had been demoted just because he or she had been moved to another division.
"(If we say) go and prosecute out of Khayelitsha, it's not going to be a demotion because people are going to what they are employed to do which is prosecute cases."
He said the debate went to the heart of the relationship between his office and individual prosecutors.
"Really every prosecutor in the NPA carries out their functions under the control and the direction of the NDPP who has specific legislative authority to intervene when there are grounds for intervening and also has responsibility for ensuring that the prosecutions policies apply, that the legislation is applied.
"So whenever the NDPP gets involved in cases it is in that vein."
Simelane has acknowledged that he advised Gladstone Maema, the acting director of public prosecutions in Gauteng, that the NPA should not oppose bail for Jub Jub because there were no "good legal grounds" for doing so.
He was briefing the portfolio committee on the strategic plan for the NPA, which Smuts criticised as seeking to undermine the independence of the prosecuting authority by proposing to incorporate its entire administrative division into the justice department.
Smuts said this appeared to be "a snakes and ladders game in which senior officers of the NPA could be sent slithering down the ladder".
She dismissed his statement that a spate of "demotions" resulted in no complaint as the Public Servant's Association declared a dispute over Lamprecht's treatment, as well as the contention that any intervention by the NDPP was necessarily lawful.
"We disagree," Smuts said
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