Pause the parade – SA criminal justice system can still fail Senzo Meyiwa

Last week, the country was hooked on the unfolding details of the murdered Bafana Bafana and Orlando Pirates goalkeeper, Senzo Meyiwa.

The investigation, which had gone cold for close to six years, looks set to reach some sort of finality in the near future following the court appearance of five alleged hitmen who are accused of being part of the murder plot. While the police work that resulted in the court appearance of the five is truly admirable, it is worth noting that the case has gone through the hands of several police ministers and investigation teams, and had been bungled several times.

The only thing that has kept the case going is the resilience of the Meyiwa family. Unappeased by the normal police and prosecutorial processes, they finally turned to Afrikaner lobby group AfriForum for assistance. And now, the case has been revived. This might seem like a cause for celebration but a closer look shows otherwise. Were it not for Senzo Meyiwa’s high public profile, chances are AfriForum would not have taken on the case, and the Meyiwa family would have had to endure the pain and heartache that many ordinary South Africans have to learn to live with.

It is a reality that underlines the continued failure of the criminal justice system in this country. It doesn’t only fail where cases are hard to crack or investigators run out of clues. It also fails victims in the most basic way: police officers failing to do their jobs and not being held accountable.

This past week, e.tv’s investigative programme Checkpoint detailed the story of an alleged sexual predator who worked for The Gym Company. A detective Nkomonde, who was handling the case, appeared in the recorded court proceedings as unprepared as a police officer could be in a court case involving one of the country’s worst crimes: gender-based violence. From failing to ascertain whether the accused owned a legal firearm to waiting for victims to hand him details he should already have, the detective was a true representation of the failing state of police investigations.

Add to that a prosecutor who was filmed reading a copy of a daily newspaper from cover to cover during court proceedings and then topping that off with telling a victim of a sexual crime to “not make it my problem,” there is not better way to put it: the ordinary taxpaying South African is in trouble. South Africa’s criminal justice system cannot be relied upon to deliver justice in a country with one of the highest rates of sexual violence and murder in the world.

Senzo Meyiwa’s family was lucky in many ways. The high profile that Senzo enjoyed in real life has been the family’s only currency in their quest for justice. This should not be the norm. While the whole country can breathe a sigh of relief that Senzo’s alleged murderers are finally in court, there are more than enough reasons to be pessimistic about the final outcome of the case. Police and prosecutorial bungling could still mess up the case (as already evidenced by the unintentional release of sensitive documents into the public domain).

President Cyril Ramaphosa and National Prosecuting Authority head Shamila Batohi do not need to set up expensive commissions of inquiry to fix South Africa’s criminal justice system. All they need to do is take time off their busy schedules and sit through one or two cases in the lower courts. They need to do this to ensure that ordinary citizens get a shot at justice.

Sydney Majoko.

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