Convicted fraudster Schabir Shaik was released on medical parole just weeks before a change in the law would have given the chief inspector of prisons the power to refer the decision for review.

The Cape Times has learnt that the Correctional Services Act amendment approved by Parliament last year is to come into effect next month or soon after the April 22 election.

At present, only the minister of correctional services and the national commissioner have the power to refer such matters to the Parole Review Board.

Correctional Services Minister Ngconde Balfour has said, however, that he will not refer the decision to release Shaik for review.

Balfour has said he would do so only if presented with "hard evidence" Shaik was not gravely ill.

He made the comments after Jody Kollapen, chairperson of the South African Human Rights Commission, had said that, in the light of apparent inconsistencies in the granting of medical parole and the public interest surrounding Shaik's parole, the decision should be reviewed.

Shaik, former financial adviser to ANC president Jacob Zuma, was released after serving just over two years of his term, prompting a number of questions about whether he was in the final stages of a terminal illness, the grounds on which medical parole is granted under the Act.

The Inspecting Judge of Prisons, Judge Deon van Zyl, said yesterday that the law allowed Balfour to send an application for medical parole to him for an opinion, but the minister did not do this in Shaik's case.

Van Zyl said that, in the nine months he had been inspecting judge, he had not been asked to comment on a single medical parole case.

He said that, although he was curious to see the papers in Shaik's parole case, the matter was outside his jurisdiction.

"My mandate is limited to people who are in prison and the condition of prisons.

"Now that Shaik has been released, he falls outside our mandate."

Van Zyl also emphasised that the Judicial Inspectorate had to maintain its independence from the department.

Meanwhile, Justice Minister Enver Surty said yesterday that he believed the public had a right to know the grounds on which Shaik had been released, but this had to be balanced with an individual's right to privacy.

Surty was responding to questions at a briefing in Pretoria by ministers in the government's justice, crime prevention, peace and security cluster yesterday.

Correctional Services Minister Ngconde Balfour was absent.

Government official Harold Maloka said Balfour was unable to attend as he "had other commitments".

Surty said medical parole was not unprecedented: 70 prisoners had been granted medical parole during 2007 and 54 last year, and 36 percent of them had died.

"The minister has indicated … that he is satisfied that due process was followed and that there is no need for a review (of the decision)," Surty said.

The DA said that the public had the right to know whether the right process was followed, given the high-profile nature of Shaik's case and the public interest in it.

The party filed an application yesterday under the Promotion of Access to Information Act to obtain access to the details of the reasons for the decision to release Shaik, taken by the Durban Westville Correctional Supervision and Parole Board.