Concourt orders release of Janusz Walus on parole

The constitutional court on Monday declared Justice Minister Ronald Lamola’s decision to deny parole to Janusz Walus, who murdered South African Communist Party leader Chris Hani in 1993, irrational and ordered that he be released within 10 calendar days.

Walus has spent just over 28 years in prison for an act that brought pre-democratic South Africa to the brink of civil war.

In a unanimous judgment, Chief Justice Raymond Zondo said in weighing the history of administrative decision-making on Walus’s repeated attempts to secure parole he was deeply mindful of the severity of the crime, and the calamity it nearly caused, but also of the fact that those who drafted the Constitution, adopted a few years later, intended all and not just those who supported the transition, to enjoy fundamental rights.