The work of a court and all who appear before it is serious business, a judge said, voicing his disdain at a magistrate who, among others, remarked during the sentencing of a rapist that the latter “could not keep his penis away from the complainant.”
Judge Andrew Reddy, sitting in the Mahikeng High Court in North West, said a plethora of unacceptable remarks by the regional magistrate tainted the decorum of the proceedings and impugned the dignity of the court.
The remarks by the judge came to the fore following an appeal by John Griqua, who was found guilty of repeatedly raping his former girlfriend. He felt that his life sentence was shockingly harsh.
Judge Reddy, however, said the magistrate was correct in handing down a life imprisonment sentence. But the judge was not impressed at all when he looked at the record of the proceedings and noted the way in which the magistrate made comments during the proceedings.
These included that the magistrate did not intervene when one of the parties asked the victim as to “how many rounds” the accused had with her – with reference to how many times he had raped her. In fact, in his judgment the magistrate himself used the word “rounds”.
He continued with his disparaging remarks when he said during sentencing: “I am quite aware that when it comes to the offence of rape itself the accused is a first offender. But it shows that this is a gentleman that has always been struggling to keep his hands away from other people’s properties… Look what happened now; he could not keep his penis away from the complainant.”
In a conversation between the prosecutor and the magistrate regarding whether there were aggravating facts in this case, both referred to the accused at that point as being emotional and “about to cry”.
In referring to the fact that the accused had allegedly committed another crime while he was out on the rape charge, the magistrate commented “it is his fault mos…”
The judge also frowned about the manner in which certain questions were posed by the court to the victim.
Judge Reddy said: “Words matter. Words give a construction of a certain viewpoint of the world, and this viewpoint tends to be gendered. Although rape is defined as an unlawful and intentional act of sexual penetration of one person by another, without consent, it must be buttressed that the victim does not experience rape as being sexual at all.”
He said for many victims and survivors of rape, they “do not experience rape as a sexual encounter but as a frightening, life-threatening attack” and “as a moment of immense powerlessness and degradation”.
“The decorum of court proceedings and the language employed by officers of the court is non-negotiable.”
Judge Reddy said it was incumbent on the magistrate to ensure that the tenets of justice were served by, among others, being a conduit for the introduction of admissible and relevant evidence, but also actively filtering questions that were posed to the victim of sexual violation.
“It is regrettable that the regional magistrate used the colloquial term of ‘rounds’ when it was first uttered in open court and even more regrettably perpetuated its use in his judgment.”
Judge Reddy said the use of the word “rounds” to denote the number of times that the appellant raped the victim during the incident tainted the decorum of the proceedings and impacted the dignity of the victim.
“The words that are spoken, the words that are written, and the decisions that are made, have far-reaching consequences on all that are intimately involved. Responsibility for ensuring proper access to the court, respect for its proceedings, and the legitimacy of its findings, rests as much with legal representatives as on the judicial officers.”
Judge Reddy said utterances that have been alluded to by the magistrate had no place in our courtrooms.
“It is unfortunate, unacceptable and completely unnecessary. An accused’s respect and dignity should never be compromised, notwithstanding the stage of the criminal process,” he added.
Pretoria News