How to bring end to kangaroo courts

FEBRUARY 29 is less scarce than the appearance of politicians in the dusty streets of our townships and villages, because their election business comes round once in a five-year cycle.

The interesting thing is that they always come armed with an election manifesto and boxes of free T-shirts. I thought I’ll make it easier for them this year round.

Consider this, my dear friends in the leadership of political parties. The justice system is overwhelmed, overworked, out of its depth and its workers underpaid. Naturally this has caused a bottleneck the size of Mt Kilimanjaro, one that is never going to be removed at the current speed maintained.

I propose a dual programme of the retraining of selected retired police detectives and ranked officers as municipal justice commissioners. The second component of this proposal is the creation of an additional structure of municipal courts where these retrained officers are to be deployed. This programme will be groundbreaking and will revolutionise the provision of legal services to the poorest of the poor.

It will revolutionise the provision of access to the system of law to poor people the world-over, because the system will be copied by every developing world country with more than enough First World nations to follow the cue as well.

And it will bring an end to the countless kangaroo courts in operation in our townships around the country.

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