CPWs: Cele & Lamola’s failure to regulate policing spawns illegal structures
17 July 2023
Given the rates of crime, citizen insecurity and loss of faith in the national structures meant to keep South Africans safe, it is a no-brainer for politicians at lower levels of government to identify the vacuum and introduce measures designed to reassure people they have matters in hand.
The Western Cape is funding the City of Cape Town’s Law Enforcement Advancement Plan (LEAP) officers who have already cost more than R1-Billion since the programme began in 2020. The reason this programme is being implemented by the City is to get around the issue that provinces don’t have any policing powers in terms of legislation.
Gauteng isn’t bothering with these niceties, directly introducing its Crime Prevention Wardens (CPWs) programme in May at a cost to the province thus far of R450-million.
The problem is that both structures are illegal.
The provinces say their members are recognised as Peace Officers in accordance with Section 334 of the Criminal Procedure Act (Act No.51 of 1977), and their powers extend to arresting without a warrant, obtaining a name and address, execution of warrants and appearing in court as witnesses.
But this section of the Act, according to a written response from the Justice Department to GOOD questions, is applicable only to traffic officers and traffic wardens who are not members of municipal police services. It does not apply to establishing criminal investigation units independent of the SAPS.
Minister of Police Bheki Cele last year termed the Western Cape operation a “rogue unit”. He said: “The rogue conduct by certain Metros of creating parallel structures of law enforcement aimed at undermining the constitution cannot be left unchallenged.”
Since then, we’ve heard nothing further from him.
Legalising the structures requires amendments by the Minister of Justice to the description of peace officers.
As long as they are carrying out their work illegally, they have the effective status of vigilante groups and run the risk of jeopardising criminal trials.
The legal consequences of arrests made by these officers are yet to be seen or understood.
According to the Minister of Justice, in reply to a written question from the GOOD Party, “An enabling provision in law should guide appointment of law enforcement officers as peace officers. This would be followed by a formal process of appointment requiring a formal request and approval of the Minister of Justice and Correctional Services, in consultation with the Minister of Police before permission can be granted and subsequently published in the Gazette. Only then will the appointees be regarded as peace officers. The Department of Justice is not aware of any formal request or application to declare CPWs as peace officers.”
What that means is that the CPW’s are also effectively a rogue unit.
The devolution of certain policing powers to municipal authorities is widely practised around the world, and makes good sense. But the devolution of powers must be properly regulated and managed.
South Africa is drowning under a wave of crime. More boots on the ground is an obvious short-term solution, while the longer-term causes of crime are addressed by a spectrum of social and developmental interventions.
But the boots must be lawful, properly trained and accountable.
At the height of the State of Emergency introduced in the 1980s by an increasingly desperate apartheid government, then President Botha introduced the concept of lightly trained, violent and ill-disciplined “instant policeman” to combat community activism.
What we learn from history is evidently nothing, because now we have the Western Cape training its LEAP officers for a mere 77 days, while Gauteng’s CPWs can patrol the streets after just three months of training.
Real police undergo 24 months of rigorous training before being enlisted into the South African Police Service as constable.
Until the Ministers of Police and Justice get their act together, and introduce suitable legislative amendments, the money used for provincially funded law enforcement should rather be spent adding value to existing structures like Metro Police or the South African Police Service.
It is a dereliction of duty for the Ministers to twiddle their thumbs while their political juniors launch policing vanity projects and ordinary South Africans continue suffering the ravages of the crime wave.
They are compounding the failures of their departments that gave rise to the perceived need for alternative law-enforcement structures in the first place.
Issued by Brett Herron, Secretary-General & Member of Parliament, GOOD, 17 July 2023
