Justin Pearce
A new initiative by the Department of Justice is set to transform the face of South Africa’s magistrate’s courts by allowing lay people to share the bench with
The lay assessors, with whom the magistrates will confer in deciding on the guilt of a suspect and in passing sentence, will be appointed by the community in which the court is situated.
A pilot project to elect and employ lay assessors has been running in the Western Cape since the beginning of this year. Very few teething problems have been
Indications are that the system will eventually be implemented in every magistrate’s court in the country.
The Department initiated the scheme to make the courts more accountable to the communities they serve, and to restore public confidence in the justice system.
“The magistrates courts are at present unrepresentative,” said Department spokesperson Sue de Villiers. “We need to broaden the base of the people before whom the accused appear.”
The legislation allowing for lay assessors has been in place in 1991, but up until this year they were appointed only at the discretion of the magistrate.
A directive from Justice Minister Dullah Omar began the move towards using community-appointed assessors as a matter of course.
The role of the assessors is more than just an advisory one. Cape Town attorney Essa Moosa says their opinions will have an equal weight to that of the magistrate.
While magistrates and assessors will aim for consensus, if this is not possible the decision on conviction or sentencing will go to a vote — which could see magistrates being outvoted if there are two or more assessors on the case.
Moosa, who is a member of the co-ordinating committee responsible for facilitating the appointment of assessors by the various communities, reports that the scheme has been enthusiastically received in all the places it has been put into practice.
Committee members travelled around the Western Cape convening meetings in each town where community organisations and members of the public elected representatives who would nominate suitable people to serve as lay assessors in court.
The lay assessors are to become a permanent institution after a meeting in April which will resolve the problems experienced during the trial period. The committee has approached the premiers of other provinces with a view to introducing lay assessors
Northern Cape premier Manne Dipico is reportedly keen to see the system get under way in his province soon. Chief magistrates in other centres have also expressed enthusiasm for the introduction of assessors.
Once nominated, the assessors will serve in court on a rotating basis and will be paid for their services. There are no educational criteria which assessors have to meet — the only requirement is that they be acceptible to the community in which the trial takes
Moosa said the aim was eventually to have a large enough body of assessors to enable assessors to be present at all trials — with the exception of cases dealing with the most petty offences.
He also said it was possible that community assessors might later be employed in the Supreme Court.
At present Supreme Court assessors are legal experts — but where appropriate one or both assessors could be replaced by a community nominee to make the court more