A shortage of forensic pathologists and a lack of post-mortem facilities have caused several miscarriages of justice, writes Sue Blaine
Statistics show that three in every thousand South Africans will die an unnatural death by murder, suicide or accident – 80 000 a year.
A post-mortem must be conducted on every person who dies an unnatural death, and medico-legal examinations are required when someone has been the victim of an assault.
Most of these examinations, particularly in rural areas where there are no qualified forensic pathologists, are done by district surgeons.
Sometimes these examinations leave a lot to be desired. In September last year, six KwaZulu-Natal policemen who assaulted four men could have walked free if the district surgeon’s evidence had been the only forensic evidence presented at the trial.
Empangeni regional magistrate Amanda Venter lashed out at the inadequacy of Richard’s Bay district surgeon Dr Frans van Niekerk’s examination of the men who were tortured. Venter convicted the policemen of assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and sentenced them to an effective two years’ imprisonment. She relied on independent forensic pathologist Reggie Perumal’s evidence, finding that the victims had been beaten, suffocated with rubber tubing and subjected to electric shocks.
Van Niekerk had stated that the men’s injuries were “minimal” and that injuries to Kunene’s eardrums were consistent with an ear infection. Perumal, in contrast, said Kunene’s ruptured eardrums could only be the result of an assault, and that the “small cuts and abrasions” Van Niekerk noted were lesions.
Perumal said he did not like to be seen to be “fighting it out” with district surgeons, who did not have the training to perform such investigations properly. Often a district surgeon was “only too happy” to have his advice and assistance.
The district surgeons’ lack of training is coupled with terrible working conditions, although forensic pathologists working in cities have to put up with “appalling” mortuary conditions throughout South Africa, said KwaZulu-Natal’s director of forensic services Dr Shireen Akoojee.
Akoojee said the situation at some mortuaries was so bad that they have been closed down in the wake of the Occupational Health and Safety Act, promulgated in 1994.
She tells of poor drainage, bodies placed on the floor while waiting for post-mortem examinations and police paying “a fortune” to funeral undertakers for storage space. Investigators compiling an audit of KwaZulu- Natal’s facilities came across one rural town where the mortuary was built near the police living quarters, and children were playing in a courtyard where the water was infested with maggots.
The Cabinet last year ordered a complete audit of South African forensic pathology facilities. A 23-strong national forensic medical service committee to oversee a proposed transfer of jurisdiction over mortuaries from the South African Police Service (SAPS) to the Department of Health is being established.
It is comprised of members of the SAPS, the Department of Justice, the Department of Health, the Department of Finance and others.
Meanwhile, a smaller team is investigating the proposed transfer. Pathologists hope this will give their work greater independence and first presented the idea to Parliament in 1996 in a national policy document they drafted.
It has been suggested that a forensic medical service post-mortem Act, making provision for a chief forensic medical examiner in each province or region, and assistant forensic medical examiners in cities and large towns, be promulgated.
In South Africa, pathologists and district surgeons who perform post-mortems can examine up to 1 000 bodies a year, compared with the United States, where guidelines demand that forensic pathologists should perform no more than 250 post-mortems each year.
Most national forensic medical service committee members agree medico-legal services should not be a police responsibility. However, there has not been final consensus about who should have responsibility for the service. Akoojee and Dr Hans van Heerden, a chief director within the national health department, are lobbying for the health department.
“The medico-legal investigation of death is today a science in itself and revolves around medical or biological evidence to be presented in court,” Van Heerden said.
However, Director Jaco Bothma of the SAPS corporate services, a member of the task team investigating the transfer, says that the feeling among the police “on the ground” was that mortuary work should not form part of police tasks, but acknowledged the job has never been a popular one with SAPS members.
Perumal is adamant the service should be entirely independent of the state and is in favour of the European system, where forensic services are provided by universities. At present samples are sent to the SAPS forensic services department in Pretoria, and a nine- month wait is not unusual.