South Africa: Prisoners Can Use Laptop systems to See in Their Cells, Says Constitutional Court

Fresh protection is unconstitutional, court docket guidelines

• Fresh protection which bars prisoners from using non-public computers in their cells to stumble on is unconstitutional, the Constitutional Court has ruled.
• In a unanimous ruling the court docket directed the National Commissioner of Correctional Products and services to revise the protection.
• Meanwhile inmates desires to be allowed to use non-public computers with out modems, the court docket acknowledged.
• The judges upheld a ruling by the Supreme Court of Allure in November 2023, which the Minister of Correctional Products and services and the National Commissioner had challenged.

In a unanimous ruling, the Constitutional Court has declared that barring prisoners from using non-public computers in their cells for studying, is unconstitutional.

The court docket ordered that the constitutional invalidity be suspended for a three hundred and sixty five days and directed the National Commissioner of Correctional Products and services to promulgate a revised protection.

Pending that, the court docket acknowledged that any inmate registered as a student with a recognised tertiary or additional training institution and who moderately desires a laptop to enhance their experiences, could maybe maybe be entitled to use their non-public in their cell, however with out the utilization of an internet modem.

Such inmates could maybe maybe be required to compose the laptop accessible for inspection at any time. In the occasion of a breach of guidelines and after considering representations from the inmate, the top of a correctional centre can even honest divulge that the inmate can even honest no longer use their laptop in their cell.

Read the judgment here.

Wednesday’s expose is to a massive stage the identical as a ruling handed down by the Supreme Court of Allure which, in November 2023, also found that the blanket ban used to be unconstitutional.

That expose used to be taken on allure by the Minister of Justice and Correctional Products and services and the National Commissioner of Correctional Products and services.

Justice Steven Majiedt, who penned the Constitutional Court ruling, acknowledged the command in the subject used to be the sparkling to additional training.

He acknowledged the blanket ban emanated from a departmental protection licensed in February 2007.

The initial command to it used to be launched in the high court docket by Mbalenhle Sydney Ntuli, represented by Attorneys for Human Rights, who used to be serving a 20-three hundred and sixty five days sentence for theft. Ntuli had complained that he used to be struggling to full his information processing direction because he can even no longer work from his cell where he spent most of his time.

Whereas conceding that prisoners had a sparkling to additional training below allotment 29 of the Bill of Rights, the Minister and Commissioner argued that allowing prisoners to sustain laptops in their cells would make a security threat.

Justice Majiedt acknowledged it used to be frequent build of abode off that Ntuli had since handed and graduated. “Almost the entire factual matrix is undisputed,” he acknowledged.

After Ntuli had been transferred to Medium C from Medium B, his laptop used to be taken away and he used to be told to use the computers in the laptop room.

On the different hand, the laptop room used to be handiest initiate during certain hours, handiest infrequently at weekends and by no formulation on public holidays. It used to be exceptionally noisy.

Ntuli acknowledged he used to be being deprived of sufficient time to stumble on.

The Minister and the Commissioner, in opposition to the applying, expressed command that inmates could maybe maybe smuggle modems into their cells or use illegal cellphones to make hotspots.

“The high court took the view that the applicants had not provided any evidence that, where computers have been allowed in cells, even with a modem, there had been any security breach,” Justice Majiedt acknowledged.

“It further held that the respondent had the right to study as much as he pleased, within the legitimate limitations that prison life inevitably presents.”

In the principle allure, the SCA held that the protection infringed the sparkling to additional training.

In the Constitutional Court, the Minister and the Commissioner argued that Ntuli used to be no longer being divested of his sparkling to additional training, however that the sparkling used to be merely being regulated in an inexpensive formulation.

Ntuli had handiest been allowed to use his laptop in his cell in Medium B because there used to be no laptop room at that time.

Their safety considerations had been justifiable and the court docket ought to no longer “second guess” the authorities on this trouble.

Ntuli’s attorneys, then again, argued that the protection is antiquated, that a non-public laptop used to be crucial to success in his discipline of stumble on, that digital versions of books payment no longer up to exhausting copies and that downloading stumble on materials from the internet page used to be mighty faster than the oldschool postal carrier.

The Judicial Inspectorate for Correctional Products and services, which used to be admitted as an amicus curiae (buddy of the court docket), submitted that in phrases of international legislation, South Africa used to be obliged to adopt and implement training insurance policies that meet the desires of incarcerated persons to be allotment of an equal, sparkling and sparkling society.

The protection ought to no longer unreasonably infringe the rights to training by prohibiting the utilization of distinguished tools.

Justice Majiedt acknowledged: “Incarceration does not take away or limit fundamental rights like education, dignity and access to reading material.”

He acknowledged the virtues of training had rightly no longer been disputed.

“We are concerned here with a limitation of the right of a person pursuing further education to have access to electronic study material. It matters not that the person is an inmate, because he enjoys all the rights accorded to non-inmates, save as they are reasonably limited in consequence of his incarceration,” he acknowledged.

“The duty of the state is to remove barriers to education and actively allow access to necessary resources to realise the right to education.”

The blanket ban restricted that sparkling, he acknowledged.

Regarding the justification for the limitation – that the sparkling to additional training doesn’t indicate having a non-public laptop in any appreciate times in a cell – Justice Majiedt acknowledged: “The simple answer to this is that access to the computer room is wholly inadequate and in effect boils down to an unjustifiable limitation.”

Regarding fears of safety breaches, he acknowledged, “this attempted justification does not get out of the starting gate” for the reason that Minister and Commissioner had no longer produced evidence to reduction up their claims.

“There is simply a glaring dearth of evidence to substantiate these security concerns. That is not what is expected of those responsible for the policy,” he acknowledged, which utilized to “all and sundry” with none regard in any contrivance to non-public circumstances and stumble on desires.

He acknowledged the Minister and the Commissioner had complained that the SCA had “ventured into the exclusive policy terrain of the executive”.

“This argument is ill-conceived. Courts have a constitutional duty, as a check and balance on executive power, to determine the constitutional validity of any law or conduct. They (the Minister and the Commissioner) do not have unfettered power to implement policies which undermine the Constitution.”

Justice Majiedt acknowledged the case used to be handiest desirous concerning the rights of prisoners to non-public computers for academic applications.

“Nothing in this judgment should be regarded as expressing a view on the justifiability of restrictions on the use of personal computers in cells for any other purpose.”