GQEBERHA – The Democratic Alliance (DA) has described the Motherwell Magistrates’ Court and Motherwell Police Station as clean and well maintained following an unannounced oversight inspection of the facilities today, 29 June, despite broader concerns about the state of the criminal justice system in the precinct.

DA Parliamentary Chief Whip and Justice and Constitutional Development spokesperson Advocate Glynnis Breytenbach and the party’s national police spokesperson Lisa Schickerling said both facilities were in good condition during the inspection, which was led by Eastern Cape DA leader Andrew Whitfield.

The delegation also included Nelson Mandela Bay mayoral candidate Retief Odendaal, Parliamentary Deputy Chief Whip Baxolile Nodada and Ngqura constituency leader Kabelo Mogatosi.

Court security a “major concern”

Despite court manager Monwabisi Vellem not being present during the oversight, Breytenbach shared her thoughts. “The court is very clean, one of the best I’ve seen, and most of the courts were sitting,” she said.

However, she raised concerns regarding the security of both premises.

“Times have changed and the security of prosecutors, policemen, and magistrates is a concern, and the security at the court is very poor,” she said. “Those little metal detector scanners of theirs beep all the time and they don’t pay any attention to them. The actual body scanners and where you put your bags through haven’t worked since 2015, despite them trying to get it done.

Breytenbach also raised a further concern, the emergency exit door at the back, which has been closed and secured with a pair of handcuffs, rendering it unusable. “If there’s an emergency, nobody will be able to get out of the door because the security have to go and fetch the key from the front, and by the time they get to the back, the emergency is long past.”

Sharing who is responsible for the scanners, Breytenbach said, “The scanners are a Department of Justice issue.”

I think it would be quite easy to get a gun in there, and if somebody runs around shooting, members of the public are going to get hurt. The security is shockingly insufficient, but the rest of the court appears to be functioning very well.

Regarding the security of the buildings, she said security is non-existent. “There is no boundary fence, and public defenders are targets. Although there have been a number of attempts on the lives of prosecutors, there’s still no serious attempt to secure the buildings.

“I would expect to see a fence around, CCTV and security cameras, security personnel manning those cameras to see what’s going on outside the building, and some sort of access control, not only at the door of the court, but into the body of the court precinct,” she concluded.

Motherwell Police Station among country’s best

Schickerling stated that the Motherwell Police Station is in her top 10 police stations across the country in terms of its functionality and cleanliness.

“When we got in, there were enough police officials, dressed neatly, with name tags on, very professional. It’s something that’s lacking in many police stations across South Africa,” she said. “This police station is incredibly clean, and the internal security is good. The only real problem they have is water outages. That’s not something they can deal with; however, the management of the police station is really excellent.”

Schickerling added, “I can see that everyone who works here is very passionate about their job. As far as police stations go, this is probably one of my top 10 that I can say is well run.”

Regarding the vehicles of the station, she said they are only using 52% of their vehicle capacity.

Schickerling also welcomed the availability of DNA evidence collection kits and D1 and D7 rape kits, describing it as encouraging given national shortages experienced at other police stations. However, she raised concerns over blood alcohol kits that had remained at the station since the beginning of June instead of being sent for testing. “They appear to send them once a month, but it delays justice. We can’t have that happening, and we will certainly address it,” she said.

Breytenbach said the delays had a direct impact on cases before the courts, with prosecutors unable to proceed until the test results were available. She said cases were repeatedly postponed, prejudicing accused persons, particularly those in custody, who could end up waiting months for samples to be collected, analysed and returned. “You’re looking at six months, not just a month,” she said.

Municipality failing SAPS, said Odendaal

DA mayoral candidate Retief Odendaal also commended the police officers and the condition of the facilities.

“The staff here really go the extra mile to try and do their jobs and to be of service to the community. That is often the case with many of our police stations, some of which don’t have the same kind of resources that we have here,” he said.

Despite the commendable work of staff, SAPS members disclosed during the oversight that they often struggle with water outages. “One is a little disappointed that they also have to deal with service delivery issues like each and every resident out there. The municipality is also failing public service organisations like SAPS,” Odendaal said.

“We heard how they have to truck in water every couple of days because there have been extended water outage problems over the last year and a half. That’s not supposed to be the case,” he concluded.

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