Waste pickers plan legal action against SAPS, Justice Department
TWO waste pickers who “fell through the cracks” of the prison system are planning to institute a civil claim for damages against the SAPS and the Department of Justice and Correctional Services.
They spent three months in jail for the crime of venturing outside their squatter camp during national lockdown alert level 5.
Justice Shabangu and George Mphotshe, waste pickers at Mushroomville camp near SuperSport Park Cricket Stadium in Centurion, said they were eternally grateful that Lawyers for Human Rights managed to eventually get them freed.
Late on Tuesday, lawyer Louise du Plessis went to fetch the pair at the Kgosi Mampuru II Correctional Centre.
Earlier in the day, a visibly angry judge of the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria had ordered the department to immediately free them from custody.
By late on Tuesday, the department managed to locate them and allowed them to go free together with seven other people who were arrested at the same time in early April for venturing into the streets.
Lawyers for Human Rights were not aware of the other seven. Their crime was that they defied the lockdown regulations by walking around – a crime for which an admission of guilt fine is possible.
Instead, the group were detained in prison, where the Covid-19 infections are steadily rising by the day.
The activist lawyers had launched urgent court proceedings to have the two freed.
The department admitted in papers that they were in jail and were brought before a court within the 48-hour period as stipulated by the law. However, they were not given bail as their personal details still had to be verified.
The pair told The Mercury’s sister newspaper, Pretoria News, that it was a harrowing experience.
“We were about 48 people in a small cell, and we all slept on the floor with one blanket each,” they said.
They also had to pay fellow prisoners, some whom were arrested for crimes such as murder, with food for a place to sleep.
“It was a terrible experience. We are not criminals; we just tried to gather some waste to sell to make some money for food. That was our crime,” Shabangu said.
To make matters worse, he said, an official demanded money for their “bail”.
The poor community of Mushroomville managed to put R710 together for this “bail”, which was allegedly paid into the bank account of the official. But they were still not freed.
Shabangu said he and his mate were terrified of being locked up in a congested cell.
“But the worst to us was the possibility of contracting Covid-19. The prisoners were talking about the rising numbers, and there was nowhere we could escape being close to the other prisoners.”
Shabangu’s wife, Mamosioua Kao, first contacted an organisation which assists the homeless after her husband did not come home on April 14.
He initially phoned her from the Sunnyside police station to tell her he was arrested. She did not hear from him for some time, after which he phoned her from prison to tell her where he was.
He begged her to try to secure “bail money”, as he said a prison official said they would then be allowed out on bail.
Lawyers for Human Rights are now set on instituting a damages claim. It is not yet determined what the amount will be, but for spending a night in jail under unlawful circumstances, a claim for damages of R50 000 (a night) could be made.