Justice to appraise watchdog unit

ANGELS fighting for justice in the Western Cape could risk having their wings clipped.

For three years the province’s Court Watching Briefs Unit has sniffed out incompetence in the criminal justice system and helped those failed by the state.

But the Department of Justice has yet to recognise the unit, made up of lawyers who monitor criminal court cases in “order to identify ineffectiveness and inefficiency of police officers”.

Last year the unit told the provincial police commissioner about 117 serious cases that had been removed from court rolls because of police inefficiency. It has been rolled out to 25 courts.

To Hout Bay father David Jones, the unit was a godsend. Police incompetence meant his youngest son’s murderer was set free. Jones often encountered the man in his neighbourhood with a smirk on his face. Jones was eventually directed to the unit and two years later the killer was sentenced to 12 years in prison.

“I think [the unit] put 200% into the case. This showed me that there are angels on earth,” said Jones.

However, Hishaam Mohamed, the head of the Department of Justice in the Western Cape and chairman of the security cluster committee, said it had yet to approve the initiative.

“The department is yet to present its terms of reference for this unit and that will be at the committee’s June meeting,” said Mohamed. “If we are satisfied we will give them the green light. If not, obviously we will send the department of community safety back to the drawing board. They can attend court as they wish but they can’t be getting documentation until I or my committee have approved it.”