Police minister Bheki Cele has published new data showing how many people have paid admission of guilt fines for breaching the country’s lockdown regulations.<\/p>\n
The South African Police Service can give a person arrested on suspicion of a less serious crime, an option<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>to pay an admission of guilt fine.<\/p>\n The fine is an admission of guilt for a less serious offence without having to appear in court, preventing an overload of the court system.<\/p>\n However, an admission of guilt also comes with a criminal record.<\/p>\n Cele said in a recent written parliamentary Q&A, that from when the National State of Disaster was first declared, to 19 June, 22,815<\/strong> people had paid an admission of guilt fine.<\/p>\n A further 199,677 are scheduled to appear in court, or pay an admission of guilt fine.<\/p>\n He further broke down the statistics across the country’s provinces as follows:<\/p>\n Cele said that the following offences were most prevalent across all provinces:<\/p>\n Fines\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n The Department of Justice and Correctional Services said in May that it is working on new legislation<\/a><\/strong> which will stop an admission of guilt fine from including a criminal record.<\/p>\n Deputy minister John Jefferies said: \u201cThis is something we have been wanting to address and it is something that will be (included) in an upcoming Judicial Matters Bill.”<\/p>\n \u201cThe idea will be that most admission of guilt fines will not attract a criminal record.<\/p>\n \u201cSometimes the due process is not properly followed and sometimes people pay pressures to pay the fine and don\u2019t realise they are going to get a record and will affect their rights.<\/p>\n \u201cSo this is something that we are going to be addressing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n
\n Province<\/th>\n Total number of people who have paid admission of guilt fines<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n \n Eastern Cape<\/td>\n 1 379<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Free State<\/td>\n 810<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Gauteng<\/td>\n 3 148<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n KZN<\/td>\n 2 466<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Limpopo<\/td>\n 11 417<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Mpumalanga<\/td>\n 1 859<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n North West<\/td>\n 1 433<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Northern Cape<\/td>\n 109<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Western Cape<\/td>\n 194<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n Total\u00a0<\/strong><\/td>\n 22 815<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n \n
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