Justice Ministry may appeal 'remorseless' Hani assassin's parole

Raymond Pani

11 March 2016

The Justice Ministry has added its own oppositional voice to the chorus of condemnation at the decision to release Chris Hani's assassin Janusz Waluś on parole.

Walus is due to be released on parole in 14 days, following an order issued by the North Gauteng High Court on Thursday.  

However, there is a strong likelihood the judgment will be appealed. 

Minister Masutha is concerned it may not be in line with the processes in place of granting parole, in which the healing of victims, is considered central making such a decision.  

The Minister of Justice and Correctional Service, Michael Masutha said “there was a strong possibility that the department would appeal the decision after a thorough evaluation of the reasons such a judgment was made. 

The judgement flies in the face of our new policy crust which is to restore the place of the victim right in the centre of the criminal justice system.

All efforts should be made to make sure that the victim's opinion should be taken into consideration when parole applications are considered. 

We have since not approved a single parole applications where there is no evidence of some effort to engage victims".