I was gang-raped 13 years ago. Please save me by allocating a date to my case
To the Eastern Cape Judge President Mbenenge and Eastern Cape Deputy Judge President Van Zyl.
I was gang-raped 13 years ago, on December 9 2010. My case was not properly investigated and in 2012 I brought a case against the minister of police for the failure of the SA Police Service (SAPS) to fulfil their constitutional duty of effective search and investigation in the case.
In 2018, judge Sephton at the Eastern Cape High Court in Gqeberha found that the police were negligent and their behaviour caused me harm.
Their appeal to the Supreme Court of Appeal in 2020 continued my traumatisation.
I got a reprieve in 2022 when the Constitutional Court agreed with the high court decision that the failure of the police to conduct a reasonably skilled and diligent search when I was being held by my captors for about 15 hours, and subsequently a reasonably effective investigation, made me suffer serious psychological and psychiatric trauma and that damages flow from that.
It is 22 months since the Constitutional Court judgment and my damages claim case still has no trial date.
See the Daily Maverick article, “ConCourt’s Andy Kawa judgment a victory for the rights of gender-based violence victims,” dated April 7 2022.
It has been a 13-year legal battle of rape, traumatisation, depression and fighting for my survival and justice for gender-based violence victims in South Africa.
The rape and negligence that I suffered at the hands of the SAPS led to my depression, continual traumatisation by the judiciary, loss of livelihood and death of my former self.
A breakthrough in his 13year cold case was announced by detective Shilajoe on February 12 2024, when the SAPS claimed that “a DNA sample was taken from a suspect arrested for robbery in 2020 and only three years later, in June 2023, the results showed a match to Kawa’s rape case.
The police started a search for the suspect, who was subsequently caught in February 2024.
A criminal case will flow from this, prolonging my trauma.
My hope for eminent closure has been shattered because the damages claim case that was set for February 19 was postponed and, as far as I am aware, there is no date set for the trial.
I cannot continue to be a victim of the criminal justice system.
I need closure and justice. The noose is tightening around my neck with every passing second.
Please save me by allocating a date to my case in this quarter.
Where is the urgency in dealing swiftly with GBV cases in South Africa to prevent further traumatisation?
Where is all the talk by the president of addressing GBV cases swiftly?
Where is the urgency by the judiciary, especially in dealing with cases of GBV?
Is this all a lie to the people of South Africa?
Justice delayed is justice denied, all the more so where it concerns the egregious miscarriage of justice in a GBV case like mine.
Legal history was made when the highest court in this land held the police accountable for failing in their constitutional duties towards me as a citizen, and a vulnerable one at that.
And yet now, 13 years after the life-shattering trauma inflicted upon me, I am still being denied justice through these unjustified, inordinate delays.
The courts should not be party to this miscarriage and I respectfully urge that my day in court be sooner rather than later in the interests of justice and to uphold the integrity of the courts.
I cannot continue to be a victim of the criminal justice system’