Cape Town - The Constitutional Court has ruled that Janusz Walus, who killed SACP leader and anti-apartheid fighter Chris Hani, be released on parole.
Chief Justice Raymond Zondo found that Justice and Correctional Services Minister Ronald Lamola’s 2020 decision denying Walus parole was “irrational and must be set aside”.
He said he was conscious of the fact that in assassinating Hani, Walus nearly plunged the country into a civil war.
“However, I have also borne in mind that when the fathers and mothers of our constitutional democracy included in it the bill of rights they did not draft a bill of rights that would confer fundamental rights only on those who fought for democracy and not on those who had supported apartheid or who were opposed to the introduction of democracy in this country.”
He gave Lamola and the correctional services commissioner an order to place Walus, who has been serving a life sentence at the Kgosi Mampuru II Correctional Facility, on parole within 10 days.
Speaking to reporters outside the court, Hani’s widow Limpho was upset by the outcome and said: “I don’t know if you heard, Zondo never referred to my family, myself or my child and the trauma we have suffered.”
Limpho Hani who has consistently opposed parole for the convicted Polish murderer, said the court was not concerned with justice. The general secretary of SACP, Solly Mapaila who was also in court, said the judgment was disappointing and based on a lot inconsistency.
Walus, a Polish immigrant whose South African citizenship was revoked in 2017, fired the gun that killed Hani at his Boksburg home in April 1993, saying that he wanted to start a race war in the country.
The gun was supplied by far right Conservative Party MP Clive Derby-Lewis who died from cancer aged 80 in 2016 following his release from jail on medical parole.
Walus was convicted for the murder of Chris Hani on October 15, 1993 on one charge of murder and the illegal possession of a firearm.
He was sentenced to death for the murder, and given five years for the possession of the illegal firearm. The death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment on November 7, 2000.
In February this year, Walus’s legal representatives argued that he was entitled to be considered for parole in terms of the provisions of the Correctional Services Act 8 of 1959, as it was the act applicable at the date he committed the crime.
They argued that the minister’s failure to consider the totality of the evidence rendered his decision to again refuse parole review-able for lack of rationality, unreasonableness and a failure to consider relevant factors.
Walus argued that the nature of the crime and the sentencing remarks would never change. This was in response to the minister’s argument about the nature and seriousness of the crime.
The minister said that it was the cold-blooded assassination of a prominent political leader which had had the potential to bring about a civil war in the country at that time. The Concourt also heard from intervening parties in the matter.