DURBAN - THE National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) said the recent prosecution of high-ranking court officials was an indication that no one was above the law.
Advocate Elaine Zungu, the NPA director of Public Prosecutions in KwaZulu-Natal, was responding to the latest prosecution of Zanele Molefe, 42, on charges of defeating the ends of justice.
Molefe was a district court prosecutor at the time of the offence and has since been dismissed from her duties by the NPA.
Molefe was sentenced to five years in prison by the Camperdown Regional Court on Friday.
The court heard that she abused her position of trust and failed to deliver on her mandate as a prosecutor.
The case related to a 2015 incident when Molefe was based in the Mooi River Magistrate’s Court, where she was allocated a case of malicious damage to property.
Molefe approached the accused, Philani Hlela, and asked for R10 000 in order to make the case go away.
Thereafter, in an attempt to resolve and mediate between Hlela and the owner of the store, Donovan Carter, Molefe advised Carter that there was not enough evidence to proceed with the case.
Three weeks later, Hlela met Molefe outside court and paid R10 000 to her to give to Carter. The money was inside a plastic bag, which Molefe took and put inside her handbag.
Carter never received that money, and when he met Hlela at the petrol station weeks later, Hlela told him he had paid Molefe. But when approached, Carter told the court that Molefe admitted to receiving the money but had spent it, and offered to pay him back in instalments of R2 500.
The right procedure, according to the NPA, was that Molefe should have made the arrangements via the court system instead of accepting the money.
Last month, Magistrate Bonginkosi Herman Mtshali, 56, found himself on the wrong side of the law when he appeared in court on charges of fraud, conspiracy to commit fraud and defeating the ends of justice.
Mtshali allegedly conspired with a medical practitioner and law enforcement officers in order to fraudulently obtain a driver’s licence.
Mtshali appeared in Empangeni Magistrate’s Court on April 16 and was expected to appear with five other accused in the Eerstehoek Magistrate’s Court in Mpumalanga on June 24.
“The cases are the NPA’s commitment to deal with corruption within its own ranks and bring justice to those who do not share our vision and mission in the NPA,” said Zungu.
Advocate Bheki Manyathi, who runs his own practice in Durban, said crime affected us all and said it was sad when the people trusted with the law turned around and violated it.
“If people who work in the law sector are found to be on the wrong side of the law, then who is going to protect the law? Members of the public confuse the role of private attorneys and there is an assumption that lawyers protect criminals, which isn’t true.
“We are equally concerned about the crime rate. We take an oath that we will do our work truthfully. An accused person facing a charge follows a process in court. An independent person, which is a magistrate or a judge, then evaluates the evidence and makes a verdict. The mediation process is a legal process, where a victim is ‘compensated’, it’s a due process of law.”
Daily News