Who are we to understand the law of this country if our own entrusted law-enforcement officers fail to interpret it?
What a source of embarrassment to our officers seen leaving the Khayelitsha Magistrates’ Court on Thursday 8 August, when the case of three suspects was removed from the court roll. They had been arrested in connection with planning a cash-in transit in Town Two.
The magistrate stated that they appeared after 48 hours. The law stipulates a suspect must appear in court within 48 hours after arrest. To do otherwise is unconstitutional.
Magistrate Brendale Abrahams had to follow the law and did the right thing. He even read the law in the courtroom before passing judgment. You could feel the atmosphere in the court, a feeling that something amiss had just happened, in a case that was among the top ones on that day.
You can’t make such a schoolboy mistake.
The state’s argument was that the suspects were arrested after hours on Monday so they couldn’t make it on the following day (which was Tuesday). But the question everyone was asking was, “Why didn’t they appear on Wednesday?”
Even provincial police commissioner Lt-Gen Thembisile Patekile was in court. Do you think he was terribly concerned about these suspects appearing at the right time?
Lord, what is happening in this country?
I can understand the suspects were arrested in the evening and couldn’t make it on Tuesday, but why not on Wednesday?
Our officers are human; they are bound to make mistakes, like the rest of us.
Maybe South Africans will grant them the benefit of the doubt, yet someone must account for this blunder.
What does this say about the police force’s reliability, always associated with such childish mistakes?
For the officers failing to count the hours is not just a blunder, but a moemish.
