In the same week that the Swiss went to the polling booths to decide, among other things, what to do about dangerous criminals preying on their children, the people of Katlehong also made their views on the matter known.
The East Rand community decided there and then to castrate a man who was allegedly caught raping a five-year-old child. By Monday the alleged rapist had not yet been charged, but was under police guard.
The response from the police authorities and human-rights practitioners was predictable; taking the law into your own hands would not be tolerated.
On the surface it is clear — in a country based on the rule of law, instant justice should not be tolerated.
But do communities believe that their own bit of land is part of a country governed by the rule of law? They ask themselves what kind of system allows for perpetrators and child victims to come face to face in court. They wonder how it can be right for criminal lawyers to ruthlessly cross-examine young children about the details of their ordeal — because lawyers are ethically bound to act in the best interest of their clients.
They read of too many cases where prosecutors put up turgid, half-baked arguments. They hear talk of police willing to sell case dockets and they have to ask themselves what it means to live in a country that bases its democracy on the rule of law.
What is a community, unlearned in the complexities of laws of procedure or evidence, to make of a case that is thrown out of court because a rape suspect was not read his rights when he was arrested? How are they supposed to react when a child appears confused about details of his or her assailant, such as what colour shirt he was wearing at the time?
Do I hear a murmur about the fact that we now have specialised sexual offences courts?
Indeed we do — 51 of them. But, according to the National Prosecuting Authority, 52 000 sexual offences cases were reported in 2002.
There is no argument that they are doing a stirling job and that conviction rates are impressive. But the jury is out on whether these courts have delivered counselling services to victims and support to prosecutors, magistrates and other court officials that were promised when the courts were launched.
But when there is a chance that the rapist of your child could escape from jail because a police official ”mistakenly” believed the suspect was supposed to appear in court and thereby assisted in his escape, as happened in Cape Town recently, can we blame communities for taking matters into their own hands?
It is true that there is a greater chance that the wrong person will be convicted through mob justice than any other system.
In fact in some cases, such as that of one George Dzukuda (incidentally also of Katlehong), the accused will sometimes plead ”guilty” with the hope that his or her ”sentence” will be less severe.
Dzukuda pleaded ”guilty” to the mob court which, seeing his contrition, decided to hand him over to the police.
He had his day in the regional court and, just before he was to be sentenced to life by the high court Court, his lawyers took the matter to the Constitutional Court arguing that the separation of trial, where one court ruled on the guilt or innocence of a party and another meted a sentence, was unfair.
The Constitutional Court found that this was not unfair and dismissed the case, forcing the matter back to the high court.
The high court judge found that the conviction was arrived at solely on the basis of Dzukuda’s confession; there had been no medical examination of the ”raped” child.
The court ordered an examination, which found that the child had not been penetrated, Dzukuda’s conviction was overturned and replaced with a charge of attempted rape, for which he was sentenced to five years in jail.
The moral of the story is that courts of law sometimes get it wrong, too.
For victims and perpetrators to feel comfortable leaving their fates in other people’s hands, those responsible for the criminal justice system must jack up their act and not merely condemn the manifestation of people’s genuine frustration.