Evidence wa ka Ngobeni
Tzaneen farm workers Jonas Maluleke (26) and Daniel Sono (28) have been waiting behind bars for a year to get their day in court in the Northern Province.
Since they first appeared in court in October 1997, their trial on charges of rape and assault of a 25-year-old woman has been postponed 12 times. The farm workers don’t have money for bail. Their legal plight spotlights the shambles of the rural courts and justice system in the Northern Province, one of South Africa’s poorest. Maluleke and Sono are among an unknown number of prisoners facing jail for a year or more without trial.
Thousands of court cases are not being dealt with because of shortages of magistrates, prosecutors, administrators and other court officials.
As a result, vigilante groups in communities near Pietersburg and Tzaneen are administering their own violent “justice”.
Kholeka Sonti, head of the Northern Province Department of Justice, this week conceded that many prisoners are behind bars because rural courts cannot dispose of their cases.
“Prisoners who do not have money for bail have to stay in custody for long periods, and those who can afford bail also need their cases to be finalised, but they are not finalised because of a shortage of magistrates and prosecutors,” Sonti said.
The delay in court affairs in the Lenyenye community is an example of the justice system’s disarray. The community has only two courtrooms serving five villages. According to a source in the court, who did not want to be named, more than 800 cases are outstanding on the court roll. He claims the cases will take the understaffed court more than two years to finalise.
Almost every case submitted for hearing in court is postponed. State witnesses and complainants are warned to appear in court each time a case is scheduled to be heard.
“The state witnesses are often disillusioned by the court’s delays in settling cases, and many cases may have to be dropped if a witness to a case is not found,” Sonti said.
The magistrates court in Nkowakowa, close to Tzaneen, has five courtrooms. Only two have enough staff. Three stand empty. The court is scheduled to start at 9am, but the doors usually open hours late. Magistrates are forced to do the work of court administrators.
A police official in Nkowakowa police station, who did not want to be named, said the delays have affected their work. “You find that you are searching for a witness for a long time, while you have other crimes to deal with,” said the official.
Vigilante groups in Nkowakowa, Lenyenye and other villages around Pietersburg are exacting their hard justice. A notorious group called mapogo a matamaga (the hunters of thieves)carries out vicious assaults, whippings, shootings and stonings on people suspected of committing crimes.
The police say the mapogo a matamaga consists of taxi drivers and youths. Some members of the vigilante group have been arrested on charges of assault and shootings, police said.
Provincial justice department representative Nelson Rapetsa said officials had heard about the existence of the vigilante group through the media.
“We do not know who these people are, and we do not know why they formed these vigilante groups,” Rapetsa said.
Sonti said the province is trying to train officials to occupy the empty court rooms.
“The justice department has been fast tracking prosecutors in an ongoing process.” Sonti said. “We have taken many people from the streets and we trained them to take up positions as prosecutors.”
But the biggest obstacle the justice system faces is a lack of money to pay court officials, she said.