Part 2: What does justice cost?

Today's post looks at the role of prosecutors, who are also crucial to the creation of specialised court responses to rape. Directives issued by the National Prosecuting Authority in 2014 stated that “Specialist, dedicated prosecutors selected on the basis of their experience, interest, skills and levels of sensitisation should deal with such matters. Preferably the same prosecutor should prosecute a matter from beginning to end.”

Prosecutors must carry out a number of tasks before a rape case is ready for trial. Complainants, for example, should be consulted within 21 days of the charge having been laid to enable the prosecutor to check the adequacy of the statement and fill in any missing gaps. It also assists the prosecutor to point the investigating officer towards other evidence needing to be gathered.

The prosecutor will need to evaluate the docket regularly in the lead-up to the trial. This may include providing ongoing guidance to the investigating officer and consulting with other witnesses, as well as the defence. Evidence such as DNA and crime scene photographs may need to be compiled and decisions made around withdrawing those matters where additional evidence or witnesses could not be located. For those matters that have become trial ready subpoenas must be readied and the complainant and other witnesses prepared for court.

At the same time, prosecutors are expected to spend a certain number of hours in court every day and meet targets around the number of cases they finalise every month. Achieving these requirements cuts into case preparation time significantly – often at the cost of consultation with the complainant.

Budget cuts have contributed still further to prosecutors’ time poverty.

In reply to a parliamentary question Justice Minister Michael Masutha reported that as at 30 September 2016, the National Prosecuting Authority’s Sexual Offences and Community Affairs Unit (largely responsible for the sexual offences courts) had a vacancy rate of 29.5%, meaning that 65 of the 220 available positions were vacant. There is no indication that the situation has improved – or will improve Only last week the acting head of the NPA, Silas Ramaite, told Parliament the NPA needed an additional R761 million to fill over 1,000 vacancies including 244 posts deemed critical.

Justice for rape complainants cannot flourish under these conditions. New Finance Minister Tito Mboweni will be presenting the Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement in parliament later this week. And while this is not a budget per se, the Statement does provide clarity around government’s priorities and income and expenditure projections over the next few years. It will thus provide some important clues around just how much justice we can afford for the foreseeable future.