Bid by SA's second top copy to block a stay-at-home order shot down

THE stay-at-home order issued by Police Commissioner Fannie Masemola to Deputy National Police Commissioner Lieutenant-General Shadrack Sibiya was suitable, necessary and reasonable under the circumstances, the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria found in dismissing Sibiya’s urgent application to return to work.

- ZELDA VENTER

In a 34 page judgment, penned by Judge Norman Davis, the court said the argument by Sibiya’s counsel that the stay-at-home-order is a disguised precautionary suspension, was not supported by the facts. Judge Davis said the instruction to stay at home was not unlawful.

Sibiya turned to court for an urgent order to return to work after being forced to stay at home, pending an investigation, and to interdict Masemola from instituting a process parallel to the judicial commission of inquiry into criminality, political interference, and corruption in the criminal justice system.

The commission was established by President Cyril Ramaphosa and will be chaired by retired Acting Deputy Chief Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga.

Sibiya has asked the court for an order declaring that Masemola’s decision to direct him to “stay at home, pending an investigation” unlawful and for it to be set aside.