Chairperson, hon members, the South African Police Service Amendment Bill and the National Prosecuting Authority Amendment Bill jointly effect the establishment of a new, integrated division in the SAPS to prevent, combat and investigate national priority crimes.
Firstly, I wish to thank the Select Committee on Security and Constitutional Affairs for the role it played in the development of the Bill now being considered. Normally the committee would only become involved in the consideration of a section 75 Bill after adoption thereof by the National Assembly.
In the case of this Bill, the committee was part of all the deliberations, including the public hearings all over the country and the public hearings in the joint committee that consisted of the Portfolio Committee on Justice and Constitutional Development and the Portfolio Committee on Safety and Security. Despite this, the committee interrogated all aspects thereof afresh, intensively and critically, once it started deliberations on the Bill.
The committee also allowed further submissions on both Bills by the Institute for Democracy in South Africa, Idasa, and the Centre for Constitutional Rights. It also allowed these institutions to make oral submissions, although the issues raised were also deliberated upon in the joint committee.
In particular, I appreciate the fact that the committee requested a report- back on the implementation of the Bill and that the committee undertook that, if there are going to be challenges, they recommend that additional resources be given to the new directorate to conduct its functions efficiently. The committee also recommended some amendments to further improve the text.
We must emerge victorious in the battle aimed at the realisation of the safety and security of all South Africans. The battle against organised crime and crime in general must be won. Defeating crime is in the best interests of our democratic transformation. The just dispensation we have entrenched is based on the principle of equality, including equal access to peace and security as an aspect of the realisation of the goal of a better life for all. Our commitment to the safety and security of every South African has, over the years, found expression in the many interventions we have made to strengthen our capacity to defeat the scourge of crime.
The Bills before the House represent a continuation of this effort. They take our fight against organised crime to higher levels. They will enable us to rectify weaknesses in our system while ensuring better organisation and utilisation of our human and material resources.
Bertrand Russell once said:
What a man believes upon grossly insufficient evidence is an index into his desires - desires of which he himself is often unconscious. If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinise it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence.
Mr Bertrand Russell lived in a different time from ours, thus his reference to "man", as you would have noticed, when referring to human beings. Patriarchal nuances aside, opposition parties would derive great benefit from a sincere consideration of Mr Russell's words.
Despite the progress that has been made in many areas, government's review processes indicated the need to realign state entities mandated to investigate and combat organised crime. The Directorate of Special Operations, DSO, was a new and innovative development in the fight against organised crime. It included prosecutors, detectives and intelligence operatives in one unit - powerful, no doubt about that. But this combination created its own problems. All police units are monitored by the Independent Complaints Directorate, ICD. However, the DSO was under the National Prosecuting Authority, NPA, and could not be investigated by the ICD. The intelligence-gathering capacity of our agencies is monitored by the Inspector-General of Intelligence. However, the DSO was not covered by this framework.
Our firm commitment to the fight against crime must find expression in resolute action. We have to address the issues of poor co-operation and co- ordination that have been revealed in practice. We have to remedy issues of duplication and parallel investigations. Failure to do so will only benefit criminals. Prosecutors need to be independent from investigators so as to better exercise proper balance in their decisions to prosecute or not and to ensure the realisation of the principle of separation of functions.
There has also been what some have referred to as the "cherry-picking" of cases - a preoccupation with certain kinds of crime, with the result that other crimes were inadvertently ignored. The previous arrangements also resulted in a situation where units which did not report their successes to the media were unjustly perceived as poor performers. A situation like this poses potential dangers.
As we traverse along the transformation path, we continually gain experience and insight into the nature of the reality we seek to change. This necessitates a continual evolution of our crime-fighting strategies, entities, arsenal and programmes. We have recognised that, because of its nature, organised crime requires that we address it through a multipronged, well-equipped and resourced unit. Through the establishment of the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation, DPCI, we shall take our capacity to fight organised crime to a higher level. Practice will indeed reveal areas to be improved. However, the collective experience, resources, commitment and unity of purpose that will already underpin the unit will ensure a very firm and effective beginning.
The Bills before us provide for, among other things, a smooth transfer of personnel. This is the task that the Minister for Justice and Constitutional Affairs and the Ministry of Safety and Security are seized with.
We must again assure the people of our country that no cases will be lost. Once the Bill is passed, investigations of the Directorate of Special Operations, DSO, shall be dealt with as if the Act had always been in force. The enactment of the South African Police Service Amendment Bill will enhance our capacity to prevent, combat and investigate priority crimes. We shall identify and preserve the positive lessons borne of our various experiences.
It is to be expected that the initial process of merging our experiences may contain some aspect of pain. There is, however, no doubt that the resultant sense of unity will be in the long-term interests of the fight against crime in our country, and it will therefore bring us closer to the realisation of the goal of a better life for all.
We must commend the profoundly democratic manner in which the Bills on this matter have been processed. In fact, this is one piece of legislation that took this long because of the thorough consideration Members of Parliament attached to it.
We congratulate Parliament and its committees on the thorough effort they put into the processing of the Bill, that is, both the select committee and the portfolio committee. The vibrant discussions have enriched our understanding of the challenges we face. The ideas that emerged have become our national intellectual assets, and they have enriched the Bills and nourished our capacity to navigate our own way into the future.
Some in our society asserted a view that some Members of Parliament should recuse themselves from participating in processes relating to these Bills. It is fascinating that such moral rectitude never arose when we enacted legislation to outlaw apartheid on the basis that many of the participants had not only benefited from apartheid, but had actually also been the architects of some of the legislative framework. The rejection of the Hugh Glenister applications by our courts is a confirmation that the principle of separation of powers is well entrenched in our country.
Freedom includes freedom from fear of criminals and criminality. We shall do all we can. We invite all South Africans, in all their areas of social activity, to flex their collective muscle and work with the organs of the criminal justice system to bring about better, safer and secure communities.
We are progressively giving life to the demand of the Freedom Charter that "There Shall be Peace and Friendship!" Thank you. [Applause.]