DURBAN - The ongoing strike by members belonging to the National Education Health and Allied Workers Union (Nehawu), which included social development employees, was delaying justice for many awaiting-trial prisoners and families of the victims of crime.
Nehawu members are demanding more favourable working conditions and salary increases.
Court cases requiring social workers’ reports had to be adjourned, some for more than two months.
These reports are often used by the court to help determine a criminal’s sentence.
This week, the family of Desiree Murugan, a Chatsworth woman who was beheaded and her body parts sold to a traditional healer in uMzinto for muti purposes, had expected to find justice when the four people convicted earlier this year for her murder were to be sentenced.
Justice was, however, delayed as the social worker reports, expected to be part of the evidence in the sentencing process to determine her killers’ personal circumstances, were still outstanding.
The matter is expected to continue next year, provided the court has these reports by then.
The killers received the news with anger because they had expected to hear their fate after being in jail since their arrest in 2014.
The matter was adjourned in January when Durban High Court Judge Thoba Poyo-Dlwati found four of the five guilty of decapitating the young mother.
Sibonakaliso Mbili, a traditional healer, and three others who were minors at the time of the murder - Mbali Magwala, Mlungisi Ndlovu and Thuso Thelejane - were found guilty of Murugan’s murder.
Murugan was lured to a sports ground in Shallcross where she was stabbed 192times and beheaded.
Her body was found by municipal workers and her head was found days later, buried at the home of the traditional healer.
Yesterday, advocate Moipone Noko, the provincial director of public prosecutions, confirmed the Nehawu strike had caused delays in the Murugan sentencing and many other cases that needed the services of social workers.
“I am concerned about the impact that the strike is having on court processes.
“It’s unfortunate that it is delaying justice for both those in prison awaiting court decisions and for the families eagerly waiting to get justice,” she said.
Noko said she was worried over the existing backlogs of cases in court awaiting social workers’ reports, and feared that the strike would worsen the problem.
She said it was not only the criminal courts that had been affected, but the children’s courts, adoption and foster care processes.
“I hope the strike will end soon and things go back to normal. This looks bad on us because the absence of this service has a huge effect,” Noko said.
The strike had reportedly caused disruptions in the child and youth care centres.
A supervisor at Excelsior Place of Safety in Pinetown, a centre which also provides an intervention programme for awaiting-trial boys, was murdered last month while other members of staff were reportedly on strike.