Reservists: SAPS complies with court order

AfriForum was on 24 June 2019 informed that the SAPS called up the reservists associated with the Kameeldrift police station to complete their annual shooting training so that they can be fully utilised again and preserve their status as police reservists.

This follows after AfriForum’s court application in the Northern Gauteng High Court in Pretoria succeeded. This application – which is considered to be pioneer work – now forces the SAPS to ensure that reservists in Kameeldrift complete their annual competency retraining to enable them to keep their status as police reservists. The SAPS has up until now refused or kept postponing training for the reservists and to send current officials for retraining. This leads to a situation where reservists are no longer capable of properly supporting the SAPS seeing as they are not competent to handle firearms in terms of legislation.   

“This news is extremely refreshing and absolutely necessary for the citizens of South Africa that are hungry for actual action by the SAPS to comply with their constitutional mandate,” says Marnus Kamfer, AfriForum’s Legal and Risk Manager.    

“The SAPS will now once again have access to additional members that can be deployed where there is a shortage of manpower in the Kameeldrift area. The SAPS has on various occasions stated that they are spread too thinly and do not have enough resources at their disposal to do what is expected of them. If the available reservists are fully utilised, the SAPS immediately has additional members at their disposal that can deliver a service at no cost.”

AfriForum is currently investigating other instances in South Africa to launch similar applications in order to strengthen the hand of the SAPS.