Cape Town - The effectiveness of police has again been questioned after Community Safety and Police Oversight MEC Reagen Allen said that in a space of three months, 198 cases served before court were withdrawn as a result of inefficiencies by police in the Western Cape.
This was found in the quarterly report by the Department of Community Safety’s Court Watching Brief team, a unit Allen said they established to bolster police oversight as mandated by section 206 (3) of the Constitution.
Eighty-five cases were withdrawn due to the dockets not being at court, 80 withdrawn due to the investigation being incomplete, 21 withdrawn due to the accused not being brought to court, eight withdrawn due to the witnesses not being subpoenaed, and four withdrawn due to forensic reports being outstanding.
He added that 18.2% of these were gender-based violence cases, and that this was a dismal failure on the part of police to turn around one of the biggest issues plaguing society today.
Community policing activist Ian Cameron, who heads up NGO Action Society said: ”It is really frustrating to us, especially in terms of GBV cases, because we experience many cases not only being thrown out because of police inefficiencies, but also police not actually doing their jobs and then also just pure time delay.”
Cameron said it felt like victims had to work harder than police to get justice, when it should actually be the police service and the criminal justice system as a whole that needed to support victims.
“This is another reason why SAPS should be devolved. The current system and management will continue to fail the committed officers on the ground, which means that our residents will continue to bear the brunt of these inefficiencies,” Allen said.
When asked for their response to these cases that saw almost 200 victims without justice, National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) spokesperson Eric Ntabazalila said: “We can only respond to your query if you give us details of each case that include the name of the accused, CAS number, the court where the case was and last appearance. In that way we will be able to tell you the status of each and whether it has been re-enrolled.”
The police was unable to respond in time for publication.