“Children robbed of justice due to the country’s courts,” says NPO

Non-profit Child Protection Organisation, Women and Men Against Child Abuse, says children are usually robbed of their right to justice due to the lack of victim-friendly rooms and intermediaries in most courts in the country.

The organisation says this then causes delays and poses a great problem for child victims, as the right to testify in a separate room via an intermediary gets overlooked or the case gets postponed.

Yesterday, the Public Protector, Advocate Kholeka Gcaleka, released her findings on the SAPS and magistrates, which revealed that the Department of Justice did not put adequate measures in place to protect victims of gender-based violence (GBV).

Her report comes almost two weeks after the President signed into law the National Council on GBVF Bill that’s aimed at strengthening the fight against the scourge.

Gcaleka’s office investigated a sample of 38 magistrates courts across all nine provinces and uncovered some areas of concern.

It found that 37 of the 38 courts inspected do not have functional case management systems.

She says the issue is rife in all the country’s nine provinces.

“The information before me indicates that in some instances, there are delays by SAPS to respond to scenes of domestic violence and/or provide assistance to victims, with the SAPS citing that they do not have enough vehicles at their respective stations to respond,” said Gcaleka.

Police union, Popcru, has conceded that the Public Protector’s report did not miss the mark.