The drunk driving case against high court Judge Nkola Motata is expected to start again in the South Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg on Monday.
In a case that has been dragging on since 2007, Magistrate Desmond Nair postponed the matter in April to give the State time to prepare its arguments against a discharge application.
Motata’s lawyer, Bantubonke Tokoto, told the court at the last hearing that the State’s evidence was weak.
Motata (60) crashed his Jaguar into the perimeter wall of Richard Baird’s house in Hurlingham, Johannesburg, in 2007, allegedly while drunk.
Tokoto said that for witnesses to smell liquor on someone was not sufficient evidence to indicate drunkenness.
The court heard last year that the concentration of alcohol in Motata’s blood was 0,2g per 100ml at the time of the accident.
The legal limit is 0,05g per 100ml.
But Danie Dorfling, who was Motata’s lawyer at that time, told the court that the Johannesburg forensic laboratory procedures were erroneous, and that they could have negatively affected the outcome of the assessment of his client’s blood.
Tokoto, at the last hearing, accused witness Baird of being racist and said he was the worst complainant ever.
”He was a dishonest witness … and made disturbing racist remarks. He saw a black judge and called him a drunken kaffir, it’s a criminal offence to say that … he humiliated him.
”He also didn’t want to be exposed in the media as a racist,” Tokoto said, referring to Baird’s initially not wanting to appear in court.
Tokoto said five cellphone recordings Baird took of Motata that night could have been manipulated.
The trial has been delayed several times, partly because Motata has twice changed his legal team.
Nair said that final judgement on the matter would be heard on June 25 or 26. — Sapa