SAPS to withdraw opposition to judgment that ‘poor black areas’ should be better policed

The South African Police Service (SAPS) will be ordered by the police minister to withdraw its application for leave to appeal the Equality Court judgment, which declared that police resource allocation in the Western Cape was discriminatory on the basis of race and poverty.

The case was brought by the Social Justice Coalition (SJC), Equal Education, the Women’s Legal Centre Trust and the Nyanga Policing Forum. It was heard between November 2017 and February 2018, with Judge MJ Dolamo delivering the judgment on 14 December 2018.

The SJC was initially “angered and disappointed” at the appeal, saying it would hurt “vulnerable communities” the most by continuing to “deprive police stations of capacity and experience”.

Dalli Weyers, co-head of programmes at SJC, called the appeal “premature” because SAPS had agreed to a legal remedy in which they would explain how they would comply with the court ruling. Weyers said the remedial measures were to have been decided upon in 2019.

SAPS dismissed this in its leave to appeal on the basis that the commission’s findings were “non-binding”, and therefore there was no reason it should wait three years before lodging an appeal.

Police Minister Bheki Cele, however, said on radio on Friday in conversation with CapeTalk that he had ordered the police service to withdraw the application.

He said: “What the judge says we must fix, we must put in order.”

Cele added that he and the national police commissioner agreed and actually concurred with the view that there is skewed resource allocation in African areas, but insisted this was not just in the Western Cape.

“The Western Cape might be worse, but we are talking nationally.”

– Background reporting by GroundUp

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