Deokaran was shot outside of her home on August 23. It was revealed that Deokaran was a key whistleblower relating to the PPE tender fraud scandal.
The matter was postponed on October 1 due to the server responsible for keeping court proceeding recordings not working.
The six accused, Nhlangano Ndlovu, Siphakanyiswa Dladla, Zitha Radebe, Simphiwe Mazibuko, Sanele Mbele and Phakamani Radebe, appeared again on October 5 with the system still offline.
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No official bail application
According to their defence attorney, the accused feel that the justice system is failing them due to the extreme delays in their case and bail applications.
The accused have been in custody for over a month without an official bail application.
They went on to indicate that they feel they are being denied the right to legal representation due to problems at the prison where they are being kept, limiting the amount of time their legal representatives have access to them.
The defence indicated that recording onto disks could provide a backup.
The defence brought an application before the court that the proceedings of the bail application should be recorded longhand by the presiding officer.
According to the defence, this is how the proceedings were recorded before the current system and that it is a tried-and-tested method.
They went on to indicate that they foresee no problems arising from the method of longhand recording due to the bail application being based on affidavits.
A further need for this urgent application was indicated as they do not know how long the repair of the system could take.
Tribute to Gauteng Department of Health senior official
Proper record needed
The State indicated that the problems with the consulting room lie with the Department of Correctional Services.
The State indicated that during trial proceedings, it might make use of the record of the bail proceedings necessitating a proper record.
The State further raised the concern that a longhand recording might unduly benefit from being able to dispute the longhand recording during the trial.
The State refuted the defence’s claim that longhand is tried and tested, saying that problems might arise that could allow the accused to be improperly released on a technicality.
The court said that as far as it is concerned, recording longhand is out of the question. It raised concerns of the accused getting off on a technicality and the unreliability of disks as a recording method.
The matter was, therefore, postponed to November 2 and 5 pending the restoration of the server.
