I’m abhorred by armchair judges

As a parent and human being my heart has gone out to the Steenkamp and Pistorius families since the day of the tragedy. Two promising lives ended tragically, the one abruptly, the other one slowly, mentally tortured and abused by uninformed masses, the media, political agendas and by what a respected legal mind described so aptly as “an example of abusive lawyering at its worst”.

As a legally trained person, I am abhorred by armchair judges who to this day sit in judgment over someone, simply because they watched the first legal soapie in our history and are absorbed and swept along by lies, half-truths, fabrications and imagination; their fascination with a world-icon on trial; and their apparent ambitions to act as judge and jury and to display their legal “knowledge” on public

Send us your letter

fora.

The masses don’t grasp or ignore the fact that the court accepted Oscar’s version of events, namely that he did not shoot in anger, did not mean to shoot Reeva and believed he was shooting at an intruder. He was accordingly convicted in a technical sense as the court found he should have foreseen that the intruder could have been killed.

And the allegations of a fight between Oscar and Reeva leading to the shooting were convincingly refuted by Barry Roux based on a clear timeline, that Gerrie Nel could not disprove.

Justice is the letter of the law, mercy is the spirit of the law. Judge Masipa applied both and deserves praise of rising above sensation and manipulation.

Sterrewag

Dawie Jacobs,

We publish letters that come with full name, address and telephone number even if you want to use a pseudonym. letters@citizen.co.za, fax 010-492-5386 or PO Box 43069 Industria 2042