The magistrate in charge of the Palazzolo inquiry called on Wednesday for a change in the law to allow foreign judicial officers more of a role in similar hearings.
Towards the end of the day on Wednesday, Cape Town magistrate Derek Winter commented on what he said was the ”problematic nature of these proceedings”.
They are being held in terms of the 1996 International Co-operation in Criminal Matters Act, the same law under which Equatorial Guinea authorities are seeking to question Mark Thatcher.
The evidence will be used in Vito Palazzolo’s trial in absentia in Italy, where he faces a charge of Mafia involvement.
Winter has, over the three days of the enquiry, been putting lists of questions, submitted in advance by the Italians, to witness.
He has then allowed Palazzolo’s legal team and the two Italian prosecutors to put more questions, under South African rules of evidence.
There was some debate at the start of the week on whether the Italians, as prosecutors, should be allowed to cross-examine witnesses, a privilege normally reserved for defence lawyers, but Winter decided that they could.
”It appears that a more relaxed approach may be in order,” he said.
The three Italian judges, who are hearing the case in Palermo, are seated beside the prosecutors in the Cape Town courtroom, but have no role other than asking questions of their own, which they have to pose through Winter, and not directly to a witness as the two legal teams do.
Winter said on Wednesday, after dealing with a series of objections on the relevance and admissibility of testimony, that he found it problematic that he did not know what evidence the judges had already heard in Palermo.
”Maybe it’s not my place to say this, but the Act we are dealing with should be revised. Perhaps there may be an additional Act or amendment to allow the judges to be sitting where I am, doing my duty.
”I think to a large extent that may solve many problems,” he said.
In the first leg of the Palazzolo inquiry, held in Pretoria last week, that magistrate raised some eyebrows when he allowed the three judges to sit alongside him on the bench and apparently indicated on one occasion that he intended to consult them.
Winter said at the start of this week’s hearing that while he did not want to be a ”bad apple” the procedures followed in the inquiry had to be correct in terms of South African law.
”Subject to cogent argument, the Italian judges cannot form part of this court in the way I understand the proceedings,” he said then. – Sapa