Johannesburg’s public defenders turn to gallows humour at the coalface of justice, reports Mungo Soggot
THE stench of urine in Court 20 of the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court was so powerful that the court orderly reluctantly opened the large windows to the chilly afternoon air. The smell was seeping up from the cells below, from where John Meyer emerged chained at the ankles to face his murder trial.
Meyer allegedly stabbed a man to death with an ivory-handled hunting knife during a brawl over a cigarette. The only witness in the case, which resumes later this month, is a R40-a-day police informer. The same informer landed him in court last year on robbery charges that were dismissed.
Meyer is being represented by Aysha Ismail, one of South Africa’s 10 public defenders – defence lawyers paid by the state. Without them Meyer would have stood a good chance of going unrepresented.
The money is not good: a public defender’s starting salary is R67 000 a year. They need a strong dedication to justice to help Johannesburg’s innumerable penniless criminals desperate for a free lawyer.
The criminal litigators work with some of the most sordid aspects of South African justice. At their morning meeting public defender Nic du Toit, formerly the head of a prison, recounts how another lawyer complained that his client had been raped in the cells at Bedfordview police station. “Rape is standard procedure. You get arrested, you often get raped,” he said.
“We all have to develop a graveyard sense of humour. Otherwise we wouldn’t survive,” says Carol Bruyns, a senior public defender.
By 10am, Vivian Fortunat, the office’s other senior public defender, had dealt with five matters in a frenetic tour of the courts. She expected to make one actual appearance – to defend one of two men charged with robbing a tourist at knifepoint in central Johannesburg. But the case was number four on the list, so was not due to start until mid-morning.
Fortunat walked briskly to an adjacent courtroom and shouted: “Siphiwe Shongwe.” No answer. She turned to the court prosecutor to say, “My client didn’t show … you’ll have to get a warrant,” before belting down the corridor. On her way she ran into another client charged with beating to death, while in a drunken rage, his cousin’s husband for “fiddling” with his wife. Fortunat told her hunched and anxious client there was nothing to worry about. “All the witnesses are either dead or nuts,” she said.
Later she explained the man’s wife was abroad and his cousin in an asylum. “They can’t even prove that there were four people in the house. All they can prove is that there is one deceased.”
Fortunat popped into Court 10 to check whether her robbery case was nearer the top of the roll, but a magistrate known for his pedantry still had three other matters to deal with.
In another courtroom a client had not turned up while another client in the neighbouring court had managed to pay for a private attorney. That client was charged with attempting to sell stolen property despite being deaf and dumb. “How could my client have arranged to sell anything? He’s deaf and dumb. Even the prosecution wanted to know what he was doing in there,” she said.
Fortunat started as a public defender after a long stint at the attorney general’s office. She says many of her colleagues are women – probably because of the pay. Her colleague, Bruyns, adds women are usually attracted to the job because they are more sympathetic.
They need their dose of irreverence. Watching a video of a slick American law lecturer on court craft, some giggle when he says lawyers have to believe their clients’ stories. “We wouldn’t have any work,” Fortunat says.
The public defender’s office was only made permanent last year after being set up in 1992. At present there is only the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court branch, although there are plans for other cities. The budget is administered by the struggling Legal Aid Board. A means test is used for prospective clients, but each public defender has the discretion to be lenient in applying it.
Public defenders pick up the bulk of their cases at Diepkloof prison, south of Johannesburg. The day the Mail & Guardian accompanied one of 15 trainee attorneys who work at the office to Diepkloof, prisoners arrested the previous day had already been shunted off to holding cells. Usually the visiting public defender is given a desk in a spacious cell to handle applications. This time the prison officials took candidate attorney Vanessa Perumal to three filthy, crowded cells where she managed to speak to 12 prisoners and fill out their forms before being ushered out by a stroppy guard.
`They [the prisoners] are usually so happy to see us,” says the 27-year-old. “Often these guys don’t get their phone call to a lawyer or a relative to pay bail. We are their only link with the outside world.”
Back at the courtroom, Fortunat runs into the client who allegedly robbed a tourist. She races through his version of events on a bench outside the court. He claims he was caught while running to fetch compact discs from his brother. Another public defender, Merinda Viljoen, glances at the docket and advises Fortunat with a sad laugh: “Just go through the motions.”
The case started late that afternoon in another courtroom, but was immediately postponed for half an hour because the interpreter could not speak Shangaan. Another interpreter was brought in. Asked whether he spoke Shangaan, he said: “Not after lunch.” The case jerked along for 15 minutes before it was 3.30pm and time to go home – or downstairs to the urine-soaked cells and on to the prison’s van back to Diepkloof.