South Africa's 'dysfunctional' justice system

Can you believe this is coming from the mouth of a senior ANC member and not from the opposition ranks? Simply incredible. De Lange has always been able to throw mean punches, but this time, he surpassed himself. Perhaps it does not matter because the current government has less than nine months left in office. Anyway, thanks Johnny for the truth.

'Nqakula must go'

In light of Deputy Justice Minister Johnny de Lange's frank revelations about the country's "dysfunctional" criminal justice system the DA has called on Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula to resign immediately, accusing him of having failed to take "proper action" despite the fact that weaknesses in the criminal justice system "have been prevalent for years" and "misleading" the country by assuring citizens that the fight against crime was being won.

Government has failed to deliver a credible criminal justice system to the people of South Africa. This was revealed on Wednesday by Deputy Justice Minister Johnny de Lange in his recent report to the Cabinet lekgotla....

The criminal justice system is unacceptably dysfunctional and the "fragmented" and inadequate crime statistics do not necessarily reflect the true situation in the country, the government has admitted.

Large numbers of cases went unreported because people had lost faith in the criminal justice system, while more than 50 percent of all crime scenes were currently not being combed for forensic clues.

The findings of the review of the criminal justice system apparently shocked ministers and President Thabo Mbeki practically offering a blank cheque for reforms.

"We have to do it (reform) so that all of us - the media, us in government - can start making decisions on crime and fight crime on a scientific basis. At the moment we act on (the basis of) what we think we are seeing but it is not necessarily what we see," De Lange told journalists in Pretoria.

He said the president had said that money for the restructuring of the criminal justice system would have to be found.

Mbeki appointed De Lange earlier this year to head the restructuring of the criminal justice system.

"Our whole area of keeping statistics... is completely and utterly fragmented and dysfunctional," he said.

"As I sit here today, it is impossible to say what happened to (the cases) of the 18 000 murders that happened five years ago."

He said it was an indictment on everyone that, 14 years after democracy, the country was still debating the problem.

He said the government had been trying to fix crime and other related problems with "Band-Aids". "Because no one can tell you actually what the system is," he said.

De Lange has already established 10 separate task teams to work on the various aspects of transforming the criminal justice system.

Home Affairs Minister Novisiwe Mapisa-Nqakula is expected to report back to him shortly on what legislative amendments are needed to give crime investigators access to her department's extensive fingerprint data base.

Privacy laws currently prohibit investigators from using personal details stored by the Home Affairs Department to catch criminals.

Billions of rand will also be spent on upgrading and integrating IT infrastructure into a single system that works across the entire criminal justice structure.

"Just at a technological level, to take us out of the stone age and bring us just to the 20th Century - not even the 21st Century where many other countries are - it's going to take a huge effort... to get those IT systems going," he said.

It's also been suggested that a "very senior" prosecutor and detective will be appointed to work closely together at each regional court to ensure that dockets are "court ready".

This was expected to greatly reduce the excessive postponing of cases and increase prosecutions.

The State also plans to double the number of detectives and increase their salaries.

De Lange said it was critical that more forensic scientists be appointed.

The country's 2 082 forensic investigators had the impossible task of trying to investigate more than 600 000 serious contact crimes a year.

There are also plans to ease overcrowding in prisons by releasing 11 000 awaiting trial prisoners who can't afford bail and to reduce the court rolls by an estimated 200 000 cases a year.