The Fidelity Security Group will not be drawn into discussing the whereabouts of its 700 or so guns handed in to the police after the expiry of licences, which police have insisted they did not have. In November, The Citizen reported that the SA Police Services’ Advocate Gift Shakoane told the Constitutional Court that his instructions were that the police did not have the guns.
Last week, Police Minister Bheki Cele lost his highest bid to overturn a lower court judgment in favour of Fidelity Security Group’s application to apply for licences for the 700 guns handed in to police. She said Fidelity elected to challenge this policy in the High Court in Johannesburg and after an initial dismissal of its case, succeeded in the Supreme Court of Appeal.
Gun Owners SA’s Paul Oxley emphasised that the judgment did not automatically grant a gun owner a licence, but that the application was subject for approval by the registrar in consideration of the material facts before them.