Pretoria - The Gauteng Department of Social Development has had to reinstate a Pretoria Christian-based social services organisation’s status as an accredited child protection organisation.
A judge ordered that the department had acted with an “ulterior purpose” in simply withdrawing the status.
Gauteng High Court, Pretoria Judge Anthony Millar awarded a punitive costs order against the department, saying: “I am satisfied that the conduct of the department falls sufficiently short of that which is expected of it…”
He ordered that a copy of his judgment be sent to the South African Human Rights Commission – both to establish whether the allegations levelled against the Christelike Maatskaplike Raad North were true, and for it to look into the conduct of the department.
The accreditation of the organisation as child protection services was withdrawn by the department following several allegations by parents and other parties on how it handled some of its cases.
The judge, however, concluded that the department simply withdrew the accreditation without listening to the side of the organisation, nor did it investigate the allegations adequately to ascertain whether they were true, the judge said.
The organisation turned to the court to have its accreditation reinstated as it was rendering protection services to thousands of children. It said the department simply listened to complaints without affording it the opportunity to defend the matter.
The decision to withdraw the status was made following certain complaints made by the public about the conduct of social workers who, it was claimed, were linked to or employed by the organisation.
The department said it investigated the claims, which included a departmental quality assurance process.
The investigation centred on eight separate cases in which complaints had been received by families with whom it had dealt.
The complaints included that some parents had been denied contact with their children and that placement had been made of children in unrelated foster care with parents who had no children of their own together with the separation of siblings.
It was also claimed that children were being given away for adoption on the pretext of it being in the best interests of the child, and that there was a breakdown of the relationship of trust between the biological families and social workers.
While only 8.4% of the cases handled by the organisation were considered, the department concluded that all court orders issued by the children’s court regarding the organisation had to be reviewed.
Besides the eight complaints investigated, the department also received a letter from the police requesting information to assist them with an investigation regarding a complaint relating to illegal adoptions, allegedly connected to the organisation.
In June the department proceeded to withdraw the designation as a child protection organisation, stating as one of the reasons that the organisation agreed to withdraw voluntarily.
The judge said notwithstanding that, the organisation placed in issue the serious unsubstantiated allegations that had been made against it, the department persisted in accepting uncritically the veracity of such allegations without affording it any fair or reasonable opportunity to have the allegations fully investigated and considered before the withdrawal of its accreditation.
The judge, however, said no matter what the findings by the court, the serious allegations against the organisation had to be urgently and properly investigated.
The department said it would refer the issues to the commission to deal with.
The judge subsequently agreed that this was the forum to investigate the conduct of all the parties involved.
Pretoria News