Covering courts can be more than just judge and jury
Legal proceedings led a merry dance in appearance of Mandela scandal accused
The court appearance of politicians, administrators and business people accused in the Buffalo City Metro Mandela memorial scandal last Friday was the biggest story in the province last week.
Not only did their presence in the East London magistrate’s court attract huge interest from those who came to support the accused, it also attracted a lot of media attention.
Print, radio and TV journalists from provincial and national media houses occupied most of the seats in the precinct’s regional court one, where the accused appeared in front of magistrate Annemarie Elliot.
The group of 11 people and four companies are accused of fleecing the metro of almost R6m of the R10m set aside for services for memorial services in the wake of Madiba’s passing in December 2013.
They have been charged with fraud, money laundering, corruption and contravention of the Municipal Finances Management Act.
Their case had been provisionally withdrawn in 2019, but re-enrolled in the court roll last week, with the accused given an unopposed bail of R1,000 each.
On Friday, the sitting lasted 45 minutes. In they came, were granted bail, and out they went.
However, this could have been one of the most difficult stories to cover due to the shenanigans that took place outside the court room.
Days prior, both the Hawks and NPA had communicated that the matter would be heard in A-court, where most journalists headed before the scheduled 9am start.
Here the media entourage was told the matter had been moved to the smaller H-court in the basement of the precinct.
It was a nightmare for those who work with cameras, as they were initially not allowed to take their equipment inside the building until they had obtained written permission from court authorities.
For a good hour, television and still camera operators were left stranded outside the courthouse, while their media colleagues endured equally difficult treatment in the court corridors.
Due to the size of H-court, the venue was filled by just the accused and their legal teams.
It had no working air conditioning, and the blistering heat filtering through left most with a sense of uneasiness. The temperature reached a high of 30°C in East London on the day.
There was also not enough space in the tiny courtroom for the dozen journalists.
While both the defence and prosecution teams were negotiating for a bigger courtroom, journalists were being given a tough time by court authorities.
They indicated that they would not allow any journalist to enter the courtroom without any form of identification.
Most of the media colleagues who did not have their press cards were made to ask their companies to e-mail confirmation to the court manager’s office.
That process saw a large contingent of journalists and NPA officials occupying the manager’s office.
More than an hour after the scheduled start, media members were still walking up and down corridors looking for a presiding magistrate to grant — or deny — permission for proceedings to be covered.
While such permission was eventually granted, and cameras finally allowed inside courthouse, a new bigger venue was also found at regional court one. However, only a few of those who had come to court were allowed inside. This was more than two hours after the scheduled 9am start.
Just before the brief proceedings eventually commenced, while the accused were making their way inside the courtroom, cameras started to roll.
This infuriated one of the accused, former health MEC Sindiswa Gomba, who was a councillor at BCM at the time of the alleged offence.
She lashed out at the media contingent, accusing journalists of only focusing on her in the case and using her images “to sell your lousy newspapers”.