Police Minister in contempt of court

24 December 2014

The DA is astounded at the extraordinary and unconstitutional act by the Minister of Police, Nathi Nleko, in suspending the Head of the Hawks, Anwar Dramat.  It is our contention that the Minister is in contempt of court.

The Constitutional Court Judgement on the 27th November 2014 stated that the Minister may not suspend the Head of the Hawks. Section 17 CA was declared "inconsistent with the Constitution and are declared invalid and deleted from the date of this order."

It is quite obviously a political ploy to remove General Dramat, put an Acting Head in his position, and instruct that person to fire Lt Gen Johan Booysen.  The KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) Head of the Hawks, Booysen, has been instrumental in conducting various investigations into six MECs and the KZN Police Commissioner and her relationship with Mr Toshan Panday.  Receipts confirming their corrupt relationship were recently published on the front page of a KZN newspaper, and the DA has forwarded them to the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID) for investigation.

Despite the Constitutional Court ruling the Police Minister has seen fit to suspend the National Head of the Hawks.  The DA has no doubt that the Acting Head will immediately seek to fire Johan Booysen. Lt General Booysen has now been cleared four times - twice by the Labour Court, once by the High Court and emphatically in an internal SAPS disciplinary hearing, when the SAPS was ordered to put him back on duty immediately.

The National Police Commissioner, Riah Phiyega, then tried to fire him, but was stymied by the ruling that only the Head of the Hawks may do so.  The next move was to suspend the National Head of the Hawks, and replace him with a puppet who will do the job.

This is a flagrant disregard of the rule of law by the Police Minister. He has no authority to suspend Dramat and must reverse this unconstitutional decision at once.

This latest demonstration of contempt for the rule of law cannot be tolerated.

Statement issued by Dianne Kohler Barnard MP, DA Shadow Minister of Police, December 24 2014

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