Cape Town ­ The public’s right to know exactly why convicted fraudster Schabir Shaik, African National Congress (ANC) president Jacob Zuma’s former financial adviser, was released had to be balanced against his right to have his medical records kept private, Justice Minister Enver Surty said yesterday.

Surty was asked after a justice, crime prevention and security cluster news briefing why, when a man had offended the public order to such a degree that he had lost his freedom, the same public was denied the right to know why he had been released.

While noting that he was not speaking on behalf of Correctional Services Minister Ngconde Balfour, Surty said that everything about Schaik’s release on medical parole was in terms of the law. The parole board had granted the parole on the basis that he was in the last phases of terminal illness.

Balfour, who was engaged elsewhere and was not at the meeting, has insisted that he will not call for the parole review board to look into how the decision was made unless cogent evidence is placed before him. Given that doctor-patient records are confidential, it does not seem likely that this will happen.

Surty said he did not believe that the public’s right to know trumped Shaik’s right to privacy *1.

He said that in the calendar year 2007, some 70 prisoners were released on medical parole and 54 last year ­ “the release on medical parole is not unprecedented”. In response to a question, he said that 36% of those released had since died.

During the briefing, Safety and Security Minister Nathi Mthethwa announced that a new South African passport would be released on April 1. South African passports and their unreliability hit the headlines when the UK recently revoked South Africans’ visa- free status.

Home Affairs Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula said there would be new security features in the passport in the interests of combating fraud. She would not elaborate on what these features were, saying that even the cabinet were ignorant of most of the features. The passports will be issued initially to new applicants.

hartleyw@bdfm.co.za

With acknowledgements to Wyndham Hartley and Business Day.