Security group, police exchange fire as 700 guns ‘go missing’

Questions have emerged around the whereabouts of about 700 guns which Fidelity Security Services Group says it surrendered to the SA Police Service (Saps) – but which the Saps apparently insists it doesn’t have.

The two locked heads in the Constitutional Court yesterday, when the Saps moved an application for leave to appeal a March ruling from the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) that Fidelity could apply for new licences for the firearms, despite the previous licences having expired after the company missed the deadline to renew them.

But after the individual responsible for handling Fidelity’s licences left, they ended up lapsing without the company realising it. And when it then tried to lodge applications after the fact, the Saps refused to process them which prompted the company to turn to the courts.

The case was initially dismissed by the High Court in Pretoria but the SCA subsequently overturned this – declaring Fidelity was entitled to apply afresh for new licences to possess the firearms and ordering the relevant designated firearms officer “to accept such applications and deal therewith”.

The Saps has now turned to the Constitutional Court in a bid to reverse the SCA’s decision.

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In the initial submissions before the apex court, the Saps argued the courts had previously found that once a licence holder failed to apply to renew a firearm licence within the stipulated time frame, that it was terminated and ceased to exist.

“The consequence thereof is that it must be surrendered for destruction,” said Major-General Eleanor Groenewald from the Saps legal division, insisting that the SCA’s ruling was “in direct conflict with this decision”.

During yesterday’s arguments, the Saps appeared to have changed tack. In response to a grilling from Acting Chief Justice Raymond Zondo, advocate Gift Shakoane (for the Saps) said the position now was that they could lodge new applications for the firearms – so long as they surrendered them, effectively for safekeeping, first.

But said advocate Marius Snyman (for Fidelity) in his address, they had in fact already done so.

“We don’t have possession of them any more, we’ve handed them in,” he said.

Shakoane, however, was adamant his instructions were to the contrary.

“The instructions I have are that there is not a surrender of the firearms by [Fidelity],” he said.

Ultimately, though, the justices appeared less concerned with where the firearms now were – and more with whether the case should even be before them, considering the Saps’ “concessions”.

“The workload of this court has increased a lot over the years … If the [Saps] had adopted immediately after the SCA judgment the position it has adopted today – namely that [Fidelity] may apply for licence in respect of these firearms as long as it has surrendered them … there would have been no appeal and we would not be sitting here,” Zondo said.

Whether the firearms had indeed been surrendered, he said, was “a factual issue that can be sorted out by both parties”.

Still, when the Saps tabled its annual report in parliament last month, it indicated that more than 5 000 firearms were circulated as lost or stolen during 2020-2021.

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And so the notion that these 700 are potentially “missing” could be cause for concern against this backdrop.

Judgment on the case was reserved. In the meantime, Gun Owners South Africa chair Paul Oxley said the case at hand would have far-reaching implications for gun owners around the country and he felt it was “vital” the Constitutional Court made a pronouncement on it.

He said there were various reasons that gun owners missed the deadline to renew their licences.

“And there has to be a mechanism in the law to consider these individual circumstances,” he said.