Convicted fraudster Schabir Shaik's controversial medical parole is not a unique phenomenon, Justice Minister Enver Surty said on Thursday.

"It is not an unprecedented event," Surty told the media at a justice, crime prevention and security cluster briefing in Pretoria.

Surty said in 2007 and 2008, 70 prisoners had been granted medical parole.

"Thirty-six percent of those that were released have passed on."

Surty said he believed the public had the right to know what the specific grounds for medical parole were, but this right needed to be balanced with an individual's right to privacy.

While not speaking on behalf of the Correctional Services Minister, Surty said he was certain that Ngconde Balfour was satisfied that Shaik's parole had been in compliance with the law.

Balfour was not at the briefing, as he had other engagements.

Shaik, the former financial adviser to African National Congress leader Jacob Zuma, was released on medical parole this week after serving 28 months of a 15-year jail term for fraud and corruption.