Pretoria - The use of Gauteng community safety department’s patrollers to monitor central Pretoria streets was an effort by the provincial government to assist both the police and the public “with additional feet on the ground”, senior researcher at the Institute for Security Studies, Dr Johan Burger said on Wednesday.
“However, they are not ‘police officers’ or ‘peace officers’ as defined in section 1 of the Criminal Procedure Act, and therefore they do not have the powers that the Act bestows on these officers. They will not, for example, have the powers to stop and search persons and/or to arrest them – except under the circumstances provided for in the attached section 42 of the Act,” said Burger.
“In fact, their powers are limited to precisely the same as that of any other ordinary citizen, as described in section 42. Anything these patrollers do, that fall outside of the provisions of section 42, would be unlawful (of course, apart from specific situations where they are called upon by a police or peace officer for assistance as provided for in section 47 of the Act.”
For some time now, some Pretoria residents have been alleging heavy-handedness and even assault by the patrollers who man several streets in the city centre and surrounding areas, including densely-populated Sunnyside and Marabastad. The patrollers wait at major street intersections, summarily stopping and searching pedestrians and checking identification documents. They also arrest suspected criminals.
