Thought may also be given to the desirability of allowing prisons to be run by organizations other than the prison service. This has happened in Australia, where some prisons are run by private companies on behalf of the state. If the prison service is not dealt with in the Constitution, this question would have to be decided by the legislature. Intelligence services As mentioned, the CIO is not established by statute. It is not part of the public service and legally has a fairly nebulous status, being simply vaguely described as “an organization established in the President’s Office for the protection of national security”. There otherwise appear to be no legal controls over the CIO. Clearly, this is not desirable. While there is certainly a need for the country to have an intelligence organization, the lack of any legal constraints means that such an organization could be misused. If popular opinion is correct, the CIO is indeed misused, in that it is believed to devote a great deal of its time investigating the activities of political parties other than the President’s party. It is widely seen as being a law unto itself, with no accountability to anyone other than the President. CIO operatives are, it is said, to be found in numerous government and quasigovernment agencies. There can be no justification for this. Members of the CIO are, in the end, public servants, in the sense that they are paid for by the public and thus ultimately should be accountable to the public, and there should be legal constraints on them and their organization. The South African Constitution specifically establishes an intelligence service and requires that: “National legislation must regulate the objects, powers and functions of the intelligence services, including any intelligence division of the defence force or police service, and must provide for – (a) the co-ordination of all intelligence services; and (b) civilian monitoring of the activities of those services by an inspector appointed by the President, as head of the national executive, and approved by a resolution adopted by the National Assembly with a supporting vote of at least two thirds of its members.” If the CIO is to be formally established as part of the security services, it needs to be decided whether, administratively, at least, it should be controlled by a commission. There certainly should be a formal command and rank structure and a formal system of discipline. At present there is a lacuna in the law. The Law Society’s model constitution would require that any intelligence service should be established by an Act of Parliament. Controls over the appointment of a commander of the intelligence service are also proposed. Police Force The Police Force in this country is presently widely perceived to be partisan, as well as corrupt and inefficient. This perception should not be allowed to continue. The functions of the Police Force should also be re-stated to include “the prevention and detection of crime”; the phrase “maintain law and order” may be too narrow. By the very nature of the police force and its functions, there must necessarily be a degree of executive control. For example, the executive could require police 68