South Africa: Councourt to hear prison TB case
The case of a man claiming he picked up tuberculosis while in prison through the negligence of prison authorities will be heard in the Constitutional Court later this month.
Rights groups Section27 and the Wits Justice Project said the matter of Dudley Lee vs the minister of correctional services had crucial elements.
“(It involved) the rights to health and conditions of detention that are consistent with human dignity,” they said in a joint statement.
On Monday, the Treatment Action Campaign, Centre for Applied Legal Studies, and Wits Justice Project - represented by Section27 - were granted permission to join the case as friends of the court.
According to the rights groups, Lee was healthy when he was sentenced to serve time in Pollsmoor Prison in 2000. Three years later he was diagnosed with TB, and the following year he was acquitted of the charges against him and released.
The High Court in Cape Town found that the minister was unable to show that prison authorities had taken any steps to prevent the spread of TB.
The minister later won an appeal against the ruling in the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA).
The SCA found that Lee could not prove that the minister caused his infection.
“It held that Mr. Lee must either identify the 'source' of his infection or show that there would have been no risk of becoming infected if the prison authorities had not been negligent.
“The SCA thereby asked Mr. Lee to prove, that which is impossible to prove,” the rights groups said.
Due to the nature of the disease and the conditions in SA prisons, “prisoners and awaiting trial detainees are at an especially high risk of infection”.
The friends of the court would urge the Constitutional Court to adapt the law so that, in this case, the causal link between the minister's alleged negligence and Lee's increased risk of infection could be established.
“Justice requires the law to be adapted in this way in order to give effect to the rights threatened by the risk of TB transmission in prison.”
The matter would be heard in the Constitutional Court on August 28.
IOL
http://www.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/councourt-to-hear-prison-tb-case-1.1359290#.UCPslKBdBU5
