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Award-winning investigative journalist Jacques Pauw is joining Wits Journalism as Director of its Justice Project. The Wits Justice Project is an experiment in teaching reporting through the investigation of the plight of those locked up unjustly in South Africa's prisons.

High crime levels means the fate of prisoners is not high on the public agenda. While the presumption of innocence is one of the fundamental principles of justice in a democratic society, it is widely assumed that prisoners, whether sentenced or not, are behind bars for a reason. For many, however, this is not the case. A third of the South African prison population is locked up awaiting trial, many for years. Yet approximately two in five of these people will eventually be acquitted. This means that a staggering number of innocent people are being deprived of their freedom.

At the same time there are other prisoners, convicted by the courts, who continue to protest their innocence. Some of these are also innocent. For these people too, the denial of justice is the denial of their basic human rights.

In partnership with the Wits Law Clinic, the Legal Resource Centre, the Open Democracy Advice Centre, the Julia Mashele Trust and the US Innocence Project, the Wits Justice project will investigate the individual cases of wrongly convicted and awaiting trial prisoners.

Pauw was a co-founder of the Afrikaans anti-apartheid newspaper Vrye Weekblad. It achieved international acclaim when Pauw broke the "apartheid death squad" story in November 1989. The commander of the police death unit was eventually convicted and sentenced to six life sentences.

In 1993 Pauw joined the SABC to produce current affairs documentaries and went on to make the Truth Commission Special Report for the corporation, a weekly, hour-long documentary-style programme on testimony before and issues surrounding the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). Special Report received several awards, including the International Foreign Correspondent's Award.

He was twice named CNN's African Journalist of the Year in 2000 and 2001 and was honoured as South Africa's Journalist of the Year in 2004. In 2007 he received the Nat Nakasa award from the Southern Africa Editor's Forum for integrity and bravery in journalism.

"Having Jacques join us and lead this exciting project is a great boost to our programme," said Professor Anton Harber, the head of Wits Journalism. "He is one of the country's leading and most experienced investigative reporters. He will be serving the dual role of passing on his skills and knowledge to a new generation, and exposing injustices in our legal system. I can think of no person whose record better equips him to do this than Jacques."