The Public Servants Association of South Africa wants an urgent meeting with court management after a bomb scare at the Durban Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday morning.
IOL previously reported that a number of court cases had to be halted following a bomb threat.
Cases were also impacted at the Durban High Court, which is held at the Durban Magistrate’s Court, including the ongoing corruption case against former eThekwini Municipality mayor Zandile Gumede and others.
According to KwaZulu-Natal South African Police Service (SAPS) spokesperson Colonel Robert Netshiunda, various policing units, including the SAPS explosives and K9 units, were deployed to the scene to conduct a precautionary search and sweep after a caller claimed that there was a bomb in the building set to detonate at 10:30am.
Addressing the crowd of staff and legal teams gathered in the parking lot, PSA Provincial Manager, Mlungisi Ndlovu, said an urgent meeting needs to be convened between court management and the union.
Ndlovu said it was strange that the threat was made a day after PSA met with regional leadership at the Department of Justice over the state of the building.
“This building is not safe. Some of the lifts don’t work, there are no clear signs about the services offered at the court. There was also an incident where a car was stolen,” he said.
IOL recently published an expose on the state of the Durban court building. According to the article, an inquiry revealed that these issues, which included non-functioning lifts, had a negative impact on the expeditious finalisation of court matters.
Ndlovu further highlighted the need for safety protocols to be implemented in such scenarios, adding that if a fire were to break out at the court, there are no clear directives in place on what protocols should be adhered to.
“We were clear with management yesterday to it’s very surprising that today there was a bomb threat,” he remarked.
Netshiunda said teams could not find any explosive devices and he confirmed that the area was safe to re-enter.
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