TRC Final Report

Volume 1

Chapter 11

Part OtherDepts

Subsection 33

Management and Operational Reports

WITNESS PROTECTION PROGRAMME

■ INTRODUCTION

1 The Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act required that protection be made available to any person giving evidence, before, during and after any Commission hearing. This included any member of a witness’s family who had been placed in danger as a result of his or her evidence. The Commission’s witness protection programme was to be set up in terms of regulations prescribed by the President, and a witness protector appointed. Pending the promulgation of these regulations, the Minister of Justice would be responsible for the establishment of the programme using, as an interim measure, the criminal justice system witness protection programme.

2 As a result, in late 1995 the Minister of Justice appointed a broadly representative task group to formulate a witness protection programme for the Commission. Advocate RC Macadam, a Deputy Attorney-General in KwaZulu-Natal, was appointed to lead the task group in producing a draft set of regulations and an implementation plan. The task group identified a number of problems with the existing legislation on witness protection, and concluded that the Commission’s programme would have to break new ground by establishing a programme unique to the work of the Commission.

3 The draft regulations and implementation plan were presented at the first meeting of the Commission in December 1995 and were unanimously accepted. The Commission’s witness protection programme was instituted on 1 May 1996. The original programme was subsequently refined due to lack of available funds. The new regulations were finally promulgated on 20 December 1996.

■ METHOD OF WORK

4 The regulations provided for a three tier personnel structure, including the Commissioner in charge of the Investigation Unit, the witness protector and security officers.

5 The task of the security officers was to receive applications for protection, to grant temporary protection and to investigate the circumstances surrounding each application. The task of the witness protector was to evaluate all applications for protection in terms of the requirements, to enter into agreements with witnesses and to manage the programme. The task of the Commissioner in charge of the Investigation Unit was to confirm all decisions made by the witness protector in consultation with the Commission’s chief executive officer and to represent the programme at Commission level.

6 Owing to delays in setting up the programme, witnesses began applying for protection long before either budget or staff was in place. In the interim, the cases were attended to and the costs paid by the Department of Justice. From May to July 1996, the witness protector attended to each case personally, paying for and being remunerated for the costs of the operation. By August 1996, however, the programme was operational.

7 Given the limited budget, it was clear that witnesses could only be placed under protection as a last resort. Rigorous admission criteria were set, requiring a thorough investigation of a witness’s case and allowing for admission to the programme only on evaluation by and recommendation of the witness protector, and finally confirmed by the Commissioner in charge of the Investigation Unit. This procedure protected the programme from abuse by persons who were either offering untruthful evidence or were in no danger.

8 Once a witness had met the admission criteria, a further evaluation was conducted in order to determine the nature of the risk. Persons assessed as low risk were placed in community-based projects, and only persons assessed as medium- or high-risk were placed in safe houses.

9 In order to maintain a community base, the project used non-governmental organisations involved in combating crime in their communities, community police forums and visible policing structures. This method of protecting witnesses, which had not been previously attempted in South Africa, proved highly successful and had the following advantages:

a the witness’s life was not disrupted and the attendant problems of loneliness, boredom, alienation and potential loss of employment were avoided;

b the police, previously viewed as enforcers of the apartheid system, now became the protectors of victims, thus helping place the relationship between communities and the police on a better footing;

c witness protection officials were free to devote their attention to cases which warranted protection;

d the notion of the need to protect witnesses was promoted in communities.