Management of Remand Detainees in South Africa - DCS-Home

3.2.3. South African Police Service Act 68 of 1995 (SAPS Act)
The role of the SAPS Act as part of the legal framework in the management of RDs is more
institutional than substantive. The substantive relevance of the SAPS Act is limited to how
members of the SAPS should perform their duties and functions in the overall CJS as prescribed
in the CPA and other relevant legislation, regulation, policy documents or guidelines. It is thus
important that the SAPS must see its role as critical to the effective management of RDs, as the
agency that has primary contact with suspects that eventually become RDs. The ability of the
state to effectively manage RDs will to a large extent be determined by the effectiveness of the
interaction between the SAPS and other stakeholders in the CJS such as Correctional Services
and the prosecuting authorities.
3.2.4. Correctional Services Act 111 of 1998
As a legal framework, the Correctional Services Act is pivotal in the detention management of
RDs. This is because DCS is the agency of state that the Act saddles with the responsibility to
take care of prisoners, which in the language used in the Act, includes RDs. The totality of the
Acts‟ provisions has implications for RDs (Chapter I to V excluding chapter IV).
Specifically, a number of provisions in the Act impact on RDs more directly. Section 7 on
accommodation specifies the requirement for prisoners’ accommodation and how different types
of prisoners should be housed. Chapter 5 of the Act, spanning sections 46-49, centres on RDs
as “unsentenced prisoners” and deals with such issues as the general principles governing the
detention of unsentenced prisoners, their clothing, food and drink, visitors and communication.
In these provisions, RDs are required to be treated humanely in terms of the quality of their
accommodation, their clothing, food and drink as well as their right to freely communicate and
receive visitors. These benefits are subject only to restrictions that are genuinely prescribed by
regulations.
One important issue that needs to be recognized is that the DCS is just one of the stakeholders
in the criminal justice system and as a result, does not work alone in the management of RDs.
There is a need for an integrated system with an effective synergy between the various
stakeholders such as the SAPS, the Department of Justice, the prosecuting authorities and
other such state agencies. An extract from Chapter 5 of the Correctional Services Act (Act 111
of 1998) is presented below:
46