Court Brief Watch intervention introduced for cases thrown out

The Department of Transport and Community Safety has introduced the Court Brief Watch (CBW) intervention, which is an initiative from the police.

Community Safety MEC, Mavhungu Lerule-Ramakhanya. Photo: Archive

Transport MEC Mavhungu Lerule-Ramakhanya announced during her budget speech that the initiative came to be as there was a growing concern that most of the cases reported to the police are thrown out of court because of various reasons ranging from lack of evidence, unavailability of witnesses and bungling of cases by police officers, among others.

“You will be relieved to hear that the ineffectiveness that contributed to failure of conviction in some serious cases is about to become a thing of the past. The department has established the Limpopo CBW in accordance with the constitutional provisions contained in Section 206 (03) of the Constitution.”

The role of the initiative will be to monitor cases that are struck of the roll due to alleged ineffectiveness of police officers.

The unit will physically go to court to listen to some of the bungled cases and report to the provincial commissioner on the appropriate remedial action and the possibility of ensuring the re-instatement of such cases to ensure equal justice for all.

We asked readers if they think the police are doing enough to ensure successful prosecution of perpetrators.

Lerato Seabe: The police do not do enough, firstly the service of the police is poor and they do not have enough resources. When you call them to report a crime they take hours before you are attended to. If they are unable to attend to these minor issues such as attending to a scene, how will they ensure that they gather enough evidence and witnesses? It will be very difficult, Also, their forensic team is centralised, which affects the gathering of evidence and the identification of suspects.
Willie Botha: Clearly they are not with 171 000 forensic cases behind, not to mention thousands of DNA evidence items missing. How can you be successful if the ‘gold standard’ is being destroyed? It’s a bloody joke.
Violet Kgatle: It is not the responsibility of police officers to ensure prosecution. Their jobs are to ensure that suspects are apprehended and only prosecutors can ensure successful prosecution of cases in court. It is important to remember that the police are messengers of the state while the mouthpiece of the state is the prosecutor.
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