KEY POINTS
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Twenty inmates at Leeuwkop Prison claim they’ve been denied parole consideration despite being eligible.
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Their urgent court applications were previously dismissed, but a High Court judge has now taken up the case for proper evaluation.
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Correctional Services must now explain why the inmates’ parole status has not been processed, following judicial criticism of state inaction.
After weeks of being denied a hearing, 20 life-sentenced prisoners from Leeuwkop Prison have finally been granted the opportunity to present their case before the Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg.
The prisoners, who have served the minimum required time for parole eligibility, claim they are being unjustly excluded from consideration by the Parole Board—a complaint they say has been met with indifference by authorities until now.
Led by inmate Stephen Langa, the group filed an urgent application to compel the Department of Correctional Services to explain why their parole applications have not been processed.
The prisoners had previously approached the court twice in the past six weeks, but their matters were removed from the urgent roll each time, dismissed as lacking legal merit due to their self-representation and vague documentation.
However, on their third attempt, Judge Stuart Wilson chose to engage directly with the applicants and offered to manage the case going forward.
“Whether or not the complaints turn out to have any merit, claims of this nature generally require the most serious and anxious consideration, because the person advancing them, being incarcerated, is inherently vulnerable,” Judge Wilson remarked.
He criticized the practice of dismissing such applications without attempting to understand the essence of the complaint, especially when filed by laypersons without legal training. “It is not appropriate to remove a lay litigant’s application from the urgent roll. Every effort must be made to ascertain the nature of the complaint,” he added.
Court slams state inaction against prisoners as Correctional Services fails to appear
One of the more troubling revelations during proceedings was the absence of any response from the Minister of Correctional Services or the State Attorney. Judge Wilson noted that “without input from the Minister, it is impossible to determine whether Mr. Langa has correctly identified the complaint and whether that complaint has any merit.”
He further stated that if state officials believed the poorly written court papers were grounds for ignoring the case, “that was a mistake.” The judge emphasized that any complaint challenging the legality of imprisonment or parole denial demands a response.
IOL reports that the prisoners claim they have fulfilled the legally mandated non-parole portion of their sentences, and therefore should have already appeared before the Parole Board. Judge Wilson’s intervention will now compel the Department of Correctional Services to clarify the status of each inmate’s case.
The judge postponed the matter indefinitely but instructed the department to provide a detailed report explaining the current situation of the applicants and whether due process has been followed
