If the medical parole policy were reviewed it would have no bearing on convicted fraudster Schabir Shaik, the chairman of the national council on correctional services, Judge Siraj Desai, said in Pretoria yesterday.

These rules do not envisage being retrospective in nature, Desai said in response to questions . Shaik was released on parole in March last year on medical grounds, for being in the �last stages of a terminal illness. He has served just less than two-and- a-half years of a 15-year sentence.

Desai said the new policy, a working document, recommended that medical parole could be revoked if a prisoner recovered from an illness.

If a person is released on medical parole, in terms of these proposals he can be reconsidered if he gets better. His parole could be reviewed.

In opening remarks, Correctional Services Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa- Nqakula said research indicated well over 60% of offenders granted parole on medical grounds had gone on to make a full recovery, leading productive lives.

The law is silent as to whether such persons should finish their sentences in incarceration or at correctional centres, she said.

The current policy also confined the department to granting parole to terminally ill prisoners. But there is absolutely no clarity on what is terminal.

Recommendations for those eligible for parole included prisoners who were bedridden, terminally ill, had a physical disability that prevented personal hygiene functions, had a cognitive disability which had worsened since imprisonment ,and a physical disability which had deteriorated and affected dignity.

Mapisa-Nqakula said medical practitioners had shied away from declaring someone in the final phase of any terminal disease or condition because it was difficult to determine with absolute clarity. In some instances this was also because they could be held liable if this turned out not to be the case.

Recommendations also included a pregnant offender and any other case where it was considered that further incarceration would reduce a prisoner's life expectancy.

Parole for HIV/AIDS patients would form part of deliberations.

�Tackling this pandemic with our correctional services facilities has not been easy pickings, Mapisa- Nqakula said, adding that the life expectancy of someone living with HIV/AIDS was difficult to predict.

The document was expected to be completed by the end of the financial year.

With acknowledgements to Sapa and Business Day.