DA to lay charges of culpable homicide against Minister Motsoaledi and MEC Dhlomo
25 July 2017
Tomorrow, 26 July 2017, my colleague, Dr Imran Keeka, and I will lay charges of culpable homicide against the Minister of Health, Aaron Motsolaedi, and the KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) Health MEC, Dr Sibongiseni Dhlomo, for the deaths of the more than 300 cancer patients who tragically died on their watch.
Section 98 of the Criminal Procedures Act states that “it shall be sufficient in a charge of culpable homicide to allege that the accused unlawfully killed the deceased”- the actions by the Minister and the MEC were unlawful and led to hundreds of cancer patients losing their lives.
The DA will lay these charges based on the South African Human Rights Commission’s (SAHRC) Report on the state of Health Services in KwaZulu-Natal, which contained damning findings against both, the Provincial and the National, Departments of Health.
The report found that both the Provincial and the National Departments of Health were complicit in the violation of “the rights to human dignity and life of the affected patients”when they “failed to take reasonable measures to progressively realise the right to have access to health care services in the KZN province”.