WEDNESDAY 4.00PM:
COURT cases around the country will be delayed from Thursday morning as prosecutors in magistrates courts refuse to work overtime in protest against the justice department’s suspension of overtime pay. And the Society of State Advocates said that advocates in the office of the attorney general in Pretoria will join the overtime ban.
Overtime pay was suspended until the end of the financial year by Minister of Justice Dullah Omar, whose announcement on Tuesday took most prosecutors by surprise. Prosecutors, who all have legal degrees, take home around R2 000 per month. State advocates earn between R7 000 and R12 000 per month.
Eduard van der Spuy, president of the National Union of Prosecutors of South Africa (Nupsa) said on Wednesday that delays in court proceedings could be expected immediately. “The prosecutors will now do all their preparations during office hours, something they usually do at home. “I think many courts will not be able to start at 9am tomorrow as usual.”
Van der Spuy said regional courts in Johannesburg had 4 380 cases pending at the end of December, many of which would only go to trial in March. There were 2932 cases pending in Pretoria’s 14 regional courts, and some had already been postponed to August.
“This situation will only be aggravated now,” Van der Spuy said. He said State advocates worked an average of 25 hours overtime a month, while prosecutors sometimes worked up to five hours overtime a day.