MEA July 2017

20 MEA MARKETS / July 2017 , The Department of Correctional Services in the Republic of South Africa focuses on the correction of offending behaviour and the promotion of social responsibility in their work. As part of our, ‘As a Company of NoteWorking in South Africa – Feature’, we profile the department’s work to find out more about themand the current Minister of Justice and Correctional Services. Delivering Correctional Services The mission of the Department of Correctional Services concerns the integrated application and direction of all departmental resources to focus on the correction of offending behaviour, the promotion of social responsibility and the overall development of the person under correction. The cost-effective provision of correctional facilities will promote efficient security, corrections, care and development services within an enabling human rights environment. Progressive and ethical management and staff practices are promoted, so that every correctional official performs an effective correcting and encouraging role. The purpose of the correctional system is to contribute to maintaining and protecting a just, peaceful and safe society. This is done by enforcing sentences of the courts in the manner prescribed by the act, detaining all prisoners in safe custody whilst ensuring their human dignity as well as promoting social responsibility and human development of all prisoners and persons subject to community corrections. The department’s vision is to be one of the best in the world in delivering correctional services, with integrity and commitment to excellence. Their core values include: enablement and empowerment, faith in the potential of people, providing opportunities and facilities for growth, integrity, honesty, efficiency, productivity, accountability, commitment, justice, fair treatment, justice for all, gender equality and the integration of disability issues. Advocate Michael Masutha is the current Minister of Justice and Correctional Services. Minister Masutha was born in 1965 in Valdezia, a small village in northern Limpopo and he grew up in Shayandima. He was born with a visual impairment, and went to Siloe School for the Blind, where he matriculated in 1984. He uses Braille and large print for reading. Minister Masutha is married with three children. He studied law at the University of Limpopo (B Juris) from 1985 to 1988, and obtained an LLB Degree from the University of the Witwatersrand in 1989. While studying, Minister Masutha became passionate about the rights of people with disabilities. He founded and participated in movements for disabled students at both universities where he studied, advocating for appropriate support and challenging the apartheid regime’s treatment of the blind and other disabled people. Adv. Masutha was the Deputy Minister of Science and Technology from July 2013 to May 2014. He has been a Member of Parliament for the African National Congress since 1999. He was a founding member of the Northern Transvaal Association for the Blind in 1986. For seven years (1989 to 1996), he served on the Executive Committee of the National Council for the Blind, during which time he advocated for the removal of discriminatory laws against blind people. He has also represented the disability rights movement in policy and legislative reform processes at regional and international levels. Minister Masutha’s activism extended beyond the borders of South Africa and he became co-founder of the Equileg Programme of the Southern African Federation of People with Disabilities, aimed at promoting equal opportunities legislation in Southern Africa. In August 1991, he participated in a delegation of the Human Rights committee of Disabled Peoples’ International- DPI (a global Human Rights movement of disabled persons) to the United Nations in Geneva. This was to lobby for the inclusion of disability as a human rights issue under the UN system – and not just as a health and welfare issue as has been traditionally perceived. 1701ME02 In 1995, Minister Masutha was admitted to practice as an advocate of the High Court of South Africa. From 1991 to 1996, he was Director of the Disability Rights Unit at Lawyers for Human Rights (a project which was a joint initiative with Disabled People South Africa), providing legal assistance to persons who were unfairly discriminated against on disability grounds. The Disability Rights Unit also initiated the Disability Rights Charter campaign that included: • Advocating for inclusion of discrimination on the ground of disability as an unfair labour practice in South African labour laws; • Removing the clause that excluded disabled workers from the basic conditions of Employment Act and; • Advocating for the inclusion of persons with disabilities under the protection offered by the Employment Equity Act and the Prevention of Unfair Discrimination and Promotion of Equality Act 2000. Minister Masutha served on the Commission of Inquiry into Special Education Needs (1997), that recommended a new inclusive education system for all learners, including those with special needs. The commission’s work culminated in what is currently known as the White Paper 6 in Basic