Police Ministry respects and abides by all court decisions
20 Jan 2012
Publicity-seeking stunt by DA is misleading, opportunistic and untruthful
The Democratic Alliance (DA) statement alleging that the Ministry of Police ignores court rulings relating to civil claims is misleading, opportunistic and devoid of the truth.
In an article by The Times newspaper (page 6, 20 January 2012), the DA is quoted as stating: "furniture worth almost R245 000 at Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa's Cape Town office had been attached to cover the costs of civil claim and that the ministry failed to pay costs for five cases it had lost on appeal."
For the record, the Ministry of Police has the utmost respect for any court decision and fully abides at all times, unconditionally. We have never defied and have no intentions of deliberately ignoring any court action in future.
Upon learning of these claims via the media, the Ministry officials together with the South African Police Service (SAPS) Legal senior team contacted and verified with the Western Cape Sheriff about this matter.
The Sheriff was unaware of any such attachments or any notice thereof. Both the Ministry's Pretoria and Cape Town registry staff also confirmed that no such letter was delivered in the past 48 hours. What was further strange was that the DA failed to mention the five specific cases, for example, the dates of the appeals, the courts where they we heard and the nature of the cases.
It would seem in the absence of any negative issue to purport towards the Ministry, the DA went to great lengths to seek publicity without verification of facts. But we are not surprised because we are now getting used to publicity-seeking, opportunistic yet futile exercises of this nature. Perhaps the notices were mysteriously sent to the offices of the DA, and if so, we would urge them to kindly forward them to the Ministry.
The DA can do us all a favour and refrain from politicking operational policing matters because it serves no purpose but creates unnecessary sensation.
For the record, the amount and number of lawsuits brought against the SAPS remains a concern to the Minister, the Deputy Minister Maggie Sotyu, acting National Commissioner Lieutenant General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi and the entire SAPS management irrespective of the amount involved. For this reason, the police leadership have consistently emphasised that police officers need to uphold the law at all times.
Those who find themselves on the wrong side of the law, as it has been evidenced in the past few months, will face the full might of the law.
We want to reiterate again, for the benefit of all South Africans and the DA in particular, that command and control, upholding of the Constitutional principles and respect of human rights by police officers must and is being intensified at all police stations; and senior management of police have begun to tighten these enforcements to curb lawlessness amongst officers.
Minister Mthethwa has, on various public platforms reiterated that with stricter monitoring of police members' conduct; there could be lesser lawsuits if not any, against them. He reiterated that instead of paying legal costs, such amounts could be better utilised in other crucial programmes of the SAPS, including the building of new police stations in areas where they had been previously neglected.
Statement issued by Zweli Mnisi, Spokesperson to the Minister and Deputy Minister of Police, January 20 2012
Click here to sign up to receive our free daily headline email newsletter
