Pretoria: Scorpions detectives belonged in the police and prosecutors with the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), a commission of inquiry has been told.

Advocate Philip Jacobs, for the SA Police Service (Saps), said prosecutors should remain true to their role, while investigators had to fall under the command and control of the police.

“The Saps does not have a problem with the co-location of investigators and prosecutors as part of a multidisciplinary task team on a specific investigation,” he told the inquiry under way here.

“But the prosecutor must remain true to his role and fall under the NPA, while investigators remain under the command and control of the police.”

The inquiry, by Justice Sisi Khampepe, is hearing submissions on the Scorpions, which operates as an elite crime-busting unit and is to recommend whether the unit should fall under the police.

It falls under the NPA, as the Directorate of Special Operations (DSO). Scorpions detectives carry out investigations in co-operation with NPA prosecutors.

Jacobs said that taking into account the history of the DSO and the factors leading to its establishment, the unit was clearly intended as a temporary measure.

The SAPS was a highly professional service and a world leader in certain areas of policing, he said. Its approach was far broader than the DSO’s and its skills and technology were by no means inferior to the DSO’s.

Wherever the DSO was located, it would need the support of criminal records, forensic science services and holding cells.

The SAPS believed there was a constitutional problem in establishing the DSO under the NPA as it did not have a constitutional responsibility in the investigation of crime or in intelligence activities. Crime operations and investigations also needed to be co-ordinated, Jacobs said.

On occasion, the SAPS had investigated suspects who at the same time were witnesses for the DSO.

“Undercover operations are conducted at high costs and run the risk (of being) exposed in view of a lack of co-ordination.”

Earlier, Judge Khampepe rejected SAPS arguments that certain of its submissions should be held in camera and ruled that the hearings should be open to the public.

Counsel for the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), George Bizos, SC, said the constitutional section providing for a single police service was often used as justification for the disbanding of the DSO. The word “single” in the constitution did not mean “the exclusion of all others”, however.

There was no provision in the constitution preventing the existence of a force such as the DSO outside of the SAPS command, Bizos said.

“The wisdom of upsetting the apple cart must be taken into serious consideration.”

Bizos said that the DSO’s mandate should rather be amended to improve its relations with other crime-fighting structures. The commission was appointed by President Thabo Mbeki in March to advise him on the future of the Scorpions.

Hearings are to continue today.

With acknowledgement to the Cape Times.