Senzo: Why is justice delivered so late

Six years it’s taken to get us to this point of 5 arrests and the acknowledgement of a masterminded hit. Was there suddenly new evidence? Did somebody just wake up? Did Afriforum have a breakthrough…or maybe the police? Why did it take so long?

Justice delayed is justice denied they say. It would make little sense for a person who would rather have justice than be told, sorry, our services expire but even so, it does ring true when delays cause pragmatic problems. Evidence could be lost to time, witnesses could die and so too could victims and those accused alike.

It would also be incorrect to label the arrest of five people accompanying a theory “justice” since arrests and accusations do not guarantee convictions. Therein lies the rub. Our issue with criminal law is that the degree of certainty to convict successfully requires much convincing. Carving a path, not only to the truth but to a provable truth is tantamount to scoring above 95% in all your exams and then still having to show your report card to your parents because they don’t believe you.

In simple cases, achieving this is significantly easier; evidence is there, accused confesses and witness corroborates, no counter narrative and all things proven an a matter of hours…lekker. In law, we call that a sitter.

But what if the case is not sitting down? What if there are various counter narratives, conflicting witness testimony, no confessions and/or some of the accused have since inconveniently died? Carving a way to a provable truth is not only tough but if you end up failing, all that investment in building your case is for naught. From the other side it’s true too; if you invest in a lawyer that charges you tens of thousands a day and you still get convicted, you’ve invested potentially millions into the same result as if you had gotten a lawyer that would have charged you the price of a garage pie.

There’s a lot of demand for immediate justice but we seem to differ on what justice looks like. An arrest is satisfactory for many as they equate the arrest to imposition of guilt but if you simply look at how many arrested people are let off without conviction, you may want to revisit that definition. Others look for convictions but they want them immediately. These are also tough especially in complex cases.

Few actually see the full picture; the line between crime and conviction. If there was a better understanding of the entire process, knowing why things take so long in the criminal justice system may be easier to swallow.

Entrenched in that fuller picture is just the limited resources and, in many instances, motivation behind the push for convictions. Go into a busy criminal court one day and see a general public prosecutor armed with a mountain of files and think just how you might cope if you were given those in the morning and had to process them to be ready for court the next day, if you’re lucky.

Detectives are equally understaffed and under resourced to move things swiftly along especially when confronted with a barrage of fresh cases daily.

Unfortunately, public perception doesn’t often consider these circumstances and when they only see progress as Gerrie Nel joins the case, it leads to the belief that the cops weren’t doing much in the years prior. Gee, even as recently as August, all it took was for a private criminal expert to post pictures on Facebook to capture an alleged killer who had been on the run for 6 years. If only the cops had thought to do that.

It’s natural that when you’re chasing the numbers, the low hanging fruit is the most appealing but at some point we’re going to need to admit to ourselves that if we allow the top of the tree to rot, we’re not going to grow much taller.

This is the issue with our criminal prosecution system. In many instances, the delay may be warranted but what’s in front of the public does not exactly explain it adequately. Of course, this opens the door for private practitioners with far more resources and fewer cases to spend them on. Surely it’s not difficult to see then that the inclusion of private prosecutors in the system creates opportunity to undermine the NPA and if the public is left to draw its own conclusions…well, it’s not looking too promising there.

It should be totally okay to take all the time needed to secure convictions. I’m not concerned that it’s taken 6 years to get this far. To me, that’s cool if 6 years was required. My concern is whether for the first 4 years, nothing was done.

When this case finally comes to a head, the NPA should be at pains to explain the delays and, more importantly, those delays should be justified by a successful conviction. A public can only get behind a dilatory body if the delay was justified in the pursuit of justice.

Richard Anthony Chemaly entertainment attorney, radio broadcaster and lecturer of communication ethics.

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