Nawaal Deane Hendrik Louw was sentenced to three years in prison in December 1998 for pushing his sister-in-law off a balcony. In his judgement, the Booysens magistrate said the fall could have killed her. But he failed to ask one crucial question: how high was the balcony? This week the case found its way to the Supreme Court of Appeal where the question was finally asked. The answer: the balcony was on the ground floor. Louw’ssister-in-law fell a mere 1,5m and broke her arm. During the trial Louw pleaded guilty to a charge of assault, expecting a suspended sentence. But magistrate Vincent Pienaar gave Louw the maximumsentence, stating that he wanted to send a message to the community thatbeating women is a serious offence. He added that Louw was lucky the victim was alive. She was, apparently, not only alive but forgiving. The victim withdrew the complaint before the case went to court, says Louw’s advocate, Pieter Steenkamp, in court papers, but the prosecutor refused to dismiss the charges.
The appeal court judges were shocked to discover that Louw was still in prison. In May 1999 he had lodged an appeal against the sentence and asked for bail. But although the magistrate acknowledged that Louw would not flee as he had a family to support and a job at a security company, he set bail at R10 000, which Louw could not raise. Louw stayed in jail until his case reached the Supreme Court of Appeal – which set aside the sentence and replaced it with the 18 months’ imprisonment thathe had already served. In their closing remarks, Louw says, the appeal judges commented that for practical reasons they had to convict Louw, but they did not support the magistrate’s sentence. Louw was finally released from prison last week. Steenkamp argues in the papers that the magistrate based Louw’s “blatantly unjust sentence” on insufficient evidence and did not bother to find out how serious the assault was. “Under normal circumstances the judges would refer the case back to themagistrate to find sufficient evidence but this would have been unfair onmy client,” explains Steenkamp. He says that if the case were referredback it would take more time and Louw would remain in prison. Louw would then become part of the statistics of backlogged cases due to the slow pace of the prosecution process in the country. Currently thereare approximately 180 000 outstanding cases, according to National Director of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka. The country would need two years to clear the current backlog, even if the courts received no newcases.
The bleak statistics are further compounded by overcrowded prisons, with 20560 inmates in Gauteng alone still waiting to be tried. To alleviate thepressure, 11 000 prisoners have been released nationwide. A further 7000prisoners will be released in “controllable groups” and placed on parole,according to the Department of Correctional Services.