GroundUp previously reported how the issue of remand detainees is a priority for the Bail Fund, a pilot project led by the Judicial Inspectorate for Correctional Services (JICS), which aims to help detainees who cannot afford bail amounts under R1,000.

On Tuesday, the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development (DOJ) and the South African Law Reform Commission (SALRC) briefed Parliament’s portfolio committee for correctional services.

The Deputy Director-General of Court Administration in the DOJ, Lucky Charles Mohalaba, noted that there are about 60,000 people in remand detention across the country. About 26,000 have been in detention for less than three months. But about 5,000 have been awaiting trial for over two years.

A small number of people have been in remand detention for a concerning number of years, some up to and even longer than ten years. There are 430 remand detainees who have been in prison without being sentenced for five to seven years, 57 who have been in prison for seven to ten years, and five people who have been in prison for ten to 15 years.

Mohalaba acknowledged that the number of remand detainees is high, and it has increased over the past few years, from nearly 49,000 in 2021.

Mohalaba said the issue is discussed at provincial efficiency enhancement committees (PEEC), chaired by each province’s judge president. Each has a sub-committee set up to intervene and look at cases where bail is less than R1,000. He said the Department of Correctional Services would provide names of all remand detainees.

Mohalaba said factors contributing to the delays in finalising these cases include accused people changing legal representatives, requests for case-related documents, multiple co-accuseds, delays in securing court dates, loss of court records, and the failure of witnesses to appear in court.

Fanyana Mdumbe, of the SALRC, briefed Parliament on recommended additions to the CPA, which once “promulgated as law by Parliament, would add to options that are currently available to the courts”.

While the CPA does have provisions for bail, the SALRC believes that “there is room for improvement”, such as the release on bail on the basis of indigence.

Mdumbe said amendments would include the release of an accused person facing fine-only offences without having to pay money. It also included alternative security for bail for people who do not have residential addresses, such as people who live in informal settlements, whose bail applications are often denied due to this.

The amendments would also empower the courts to look into the circumstances of a remand detainee and to make a determination on whether their remand conditions are reasonable.

Some MPs were critical of the number of remand detainees, the conditions they were detained in, overcrowding, and potential failure of the judiciary to address the increasing number of remand detainees.

DA MP Kabelo Kgobisa-Ngcaba questioned how many correctional facilities officials from the DOJ had visited. “I don’t think you have a full appreciation of the horror in our prisons. Is it justice for people to languish in those conditions when they are unsentenced?” she asked.

EFF MP Nontando Nolutshungu said, “We can have the best policies, but if they are not implemented properly, we are not going to get the results.”

Nolutshungu said that the remand detainee population increase over the past five years “shows a deeper failure in the justice system”.

DA MP Janho Engelbrecht was also critical of the judiciary, saying, “Their independence is crucial to our democracy, however, the judiciary’s independence cannot be a shield against accountability. Their decisions on sentencing bail and case backlogs directly cause prison overcrowding and undermine our rehabilitation mandate.”

The Minister of Justice Mmamoloko Kubayi noted that the CPA does not give powers to the minister but to the courts.

“The judiciary is independent and does not account to the executive. We are responsible for the administration and financial support for the judiciary and the NPA. But I’m not accountable to nor are we allowed to get involved in court matters and in how a judicial decision is taken,” said Kubayi.

“Our only option is through policies, legislation and regulations,” she said.

The minister also said in response that she has been prioritising infrastructure challenges in courts, and therefore has not visited a correctional facility.

She said the CPA amendments would be completed before the end of the financial year, March 2026.

Written by Liezl Human for GroundUp and republished with permission. The original article can be found here.

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During a media briefing on Monday, committee chair Kgomotso Ramolobeng said that the large number of remand detainees – prisoners awaiting trial – was the biggest contributor to overcrowding. There are currently around 57,600 remand detainees. Almost a third of people in South African prisons are awaiting sentencing.

Ramolobeng said both the departments of Correctional Services and of Justice and Constitutional Development must take responsibility. In the 2023/24 financial year, only around 3% of the cases referred to courts were successfully prosecuted. This is a “tiny success rate,” she said.

Legislation that is supposed to regulate remand detention is “producing very minimal results”. This includes Section 63A of the Criminal Procedure Act, which allows for people to be released on warning instead of bail, and Section 49G of the Correctional Services Act, which limits remand detention to two years.

Ramolobeng said the committee has invited the justice minister to address the committee on how to better process remand detainees.

About 2,500 people are in prison simply because they can’t afford bail. These inmates frequently have bail set between R300 and R1,000.

It costs the state around R470 a day to keep them in prison, said Ramolobeng.

“We cannot have a system that further perpetuates the injustices that our constitutional democracy so desperately tries to correct,” said Ramolobeng.

Community service instead of imprisonment could be more appropriate in some cases and will reduce overcrowding.

Infrastructure

Ramolobeng also highlighted the infrastructure backlog. There is not enough maintenance, and infrastructure is often vandalised by inmates, she said. Overcrowding puts a strain on infrastructure.

While some facilities need regular maintenance, others require major upgrades and repairs. For example, a kitchen in a Durban prison is temporarily closed for repairs after concerns were raised by the parliamentary portfolio committee, said Ramolobeng. The department also closed and repaired the kitchen at Modderbee prison in Gauteng earlier this year.

The department remains underfunded, she said. This year, the department has been allocated R29.2-billion.

“The committee has urged the department to tighten its belt and implement measures to cap expenditure, including placing more emphasis on a self-sufficient and sustainability model and using offender labour to cut costs,” said Ramolobeng.

“Foreign nationals”

Ramolobeng also addressed the issue of immigrants in South African prisons – a topic raised in several committee meetings in recent months.

There are more than 25,500 people of other nationalities in South African prisons as of 30 June. Around 13,400 of them are sentenced offenders, while the rest are remand detainees awaiting sentencing.

Ramolobeng said that this costs the country around R11-million a day (GroundUp has not independently verified this).

“The committee is seriously concerned that our correctional facilities have so many foreign nationals, but our country has not entered into an inmate exchange program with other countries, to see how we mitigate this challenge.”

She suggested that those sentenced to life could serve these terms in their home countries. She said the Department of Correctional Services has taken this issue seriously and indicated that it is open to revising the relevant section in the Correctional Services Act.

Written by Elna Schütz for GroundUp and republished with permission. The original article can be found here.

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African National Congress (ANC) National Assembly whip Mzwanele Sokopo was informed by Correctional Services Minister Pieter Groenewald in reply to a parliamentary question that as of September 2024, there were 57 970 remand detainees in custody. A total of 3 167 remand detainees were granted bail as of 30 September.

Of the five detainees currently incarcerated who have to date, spent more than 10 years behind bars as RDs, four are in Eastern Cape with the fifth being detained in Limpopo. Detained periods for 21 156 RDs range from six months to the five held for over 10 years.

Explaining the high number of RDs nationally, Groenewald responded that, in part, it was “due to the high increase of arrests and delays within the Criminal Justice System, the numbers of unsentenced inmates is high”. Going further he noted the Department of Correctional Services (DCS) has developed a tool to monitor the lengths of time RDs are behind bars and “actively engages the judiciary” in this regard.

Numbers-wise Gauteng has 230 RDs in the five to 20 year category with 58s in the three to five year category.

Gauteng leads remand detention facilities with 5 565 RDs in custody, with the Western Cape second, with 4 813 still in custody. This is followed by the Eastern Cape (3 000), Limpopo (2 612), KwaZulu-Natal (2 567) and Free State/Northern Cape (2 604). Mpumalanga and North West do not feature in the DCS numbers given to Sokopo.

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