What to expect from Cachalia

In the wake of the present crisis of policing integrity, Cyril Ramaphosa chose a clever strategy. Well aware that he could neither ignore Mkhwanazi’s accusations, nor bury him in counteraccusations, he has chosen instead to offer Minister Mchunu a golden parachute – suspension on full pay, and a long and impotent judicial inquiry, in the style of Siriti and Zondo, which will doubtless result in nobody being held accountable.

His replacement, Firoz Cachalia, is a veteran member of the UDF, the Communist Party, a former student activist, political prisoner, with all-round struggle cred, who nonetheless has demonstrated a reasonable degree of efficacy in improving police performance in the past, as MEC of Safety and Security in Gauteng. Until now, he was working for Wits University and the National Anti-Corruption Advisory Council, and has made some input into legislation like the Political Party Funding Act.

His jurisprudential writing is fairly orthodox, and fairly boring. He has introduced little tangible, and his writings mostly urge caution in one direction or another, rather than providing clear heuristics for deciding cases. Generally he regards all present legal and constitutional conditions as basically fine, and on an inevitable trajectory toward greater accountability.

He is highly sceptical of the separation of powers, and believes in minimum intervention into corruption or the political process by the judicial branch, to avoid “meddling”, and to preserve the “political process” and “representativity”. His partisanship and support for a philosophy of what amounts to a one-party-state with containment mechanisms for opposition is visible in his past membership of the Communist Party, as well as his 2003 article “In praise of despotism”, in which he appears to have argued (judging by the citations I could find) that checks on power are best found within an apparatus set up the majoritarian party, and political opposition should not be seen as a legitimate vector for accountability.

His view of the constitution more broadly seems very neatly within the gradualist utopian position adopted by the Ramaphosa faction. He tends to see himself as a middle-ground figure, criticising the “right” (liberal constitutionalists) and well as radical constitutional abolitionists like Dladla and Ramose of the University of Pretoria, who reject anything of European origin, do not regard non-blacks as fully human, and are popular among the ranks of the EFF, PAC, ATM and MK.

Ultimately, he sees the constitution as an instrument for engineering a single syncretic culture in which all people are materially and internally equal, that contracts and private property rights should be seen as more or less irrelevant unless they aid in levelling and redistribution, and that the constitution is secondary to the main “democratic” project, so that the preamble and its focus on social justice is ultimately overriding of any procedural technicalities.

But it is his policing chops that are most important for now.

As Gauteng MEC for Safety and Security, he was in charge of 2006’s Operation Iron Fist, and naturally, he reported it a success, like so many other public officials before and since. But it does seem to have had an impact on arrest figures, which went up significantly. He also launched Operation Take Charge, which was aimed at broadening the involvement with volunteers and the private sector through CPFs.

He seems to have been fairly hands-on, having forced police to arrest a suspect for repeatedly raping a nine year old girl in Yeoville, which they didn’t seem too enthusiastic to do, despite having all necessary evidence, and the home location of the perpetrator. But such is SAPS.

It is difficult to say to what degree we can expect community involvement in the present, given the emergence of AfriForum and the political resentment they have attracted, but during Cachalia’s tenure, he reached out to facilitate community patrols to keep the streets clear of violent criminals whose presence is generally disruptive for ordinary life.

An academic covering this initiative described it in some detail. It is the usual sort of thing one expects, but police support and provincial department aid with equipment is certainly a bonus:

“On patrol days, 20-40 patrollers convene at the station between 18:00-20:00pm for a 4-6 hour patrol. They assemble in an abandoned room inside the station, get dressed in reflective jackets and execute a military-style drill. [Then, Captain Moroke] arrives and addresses the group on administrative issues, recent crime reports and the plan of action for the night’s patrol. The plan usually consists of a list of designated suburbs where separate teams will patrol, and a time to convene at a pre-arranged site at the end of the patrol. After a short prayer, Moroke separates the patrollers into 2-3 teams of no less than 10 persons and appoints one individual to lead each team.
At the end of parade the teams go their separate ways. Moroke provides monitoring and support by roaming between the teams and the station in a vehicle, but generally exerts limited direct oversight on tactics and procedure. The teams patrol the precinct by travelling along routes determined by their team leaders. Unless they are specifically requested to, or suspect a criminal act is taking place in a private building, they remain in public areas: on the streets and in the parks. Each group gradually fans out, discussing options as they go, including whether they should ‘jump’ to cover the other side of the street, wait for colleagues, or split up and walk in the same direction along parallel streets. The patrollers walk at a fairly casual pace, and are dressed in bright reflective jackets.”

This may not lead to many arrests, but it does improve life on the street for ordinary citizens, since much of the regular menaces can be removed from public spaces, which is already a major improvement on public life, and something which SAPS has not regarded as important in principle (not that they as a rule take any part of their duty seriously).

It is possible that Cachalia could improve matters should he get involved in police strategy, though with only six months at the helm, his effect on accountability is far more important. As head of NACAC, he and his colleagues have achieved little but talk. Ramaphosa has not created any greater accountability in his tenure, and has mostly worked to erode constitutional checks on central state power.

Cachalia’s partisan alignment, his ideological orthodoxy and centralism, and in particular, his insistence that procedure and oversight are secondary to the “political process”, make it likely that his task will be keeping the stink off the president, rather than cleaning the Augean Stables.