Carmel Rickard devoutly wishes police in her platteland town were half as vigilant as those in Qumbu.
Like every city visitor to our town, I was initially charmed by the calves grazing on the pavements and the horses wandering through the streets of Smithfield. Real platteland scenes, I thought. Proof that I’ve left the urban hustle for good.
But the charm fades after a close midnight encounter with a cow, camouflaged by the dark, standing in the middle of the road. Horse corpses at the side of the N6, linked by a bloody skid-mark to a smashed vehicle, are all regular reminders that although it may be picturesque, animals roaming the streets present a health and safety hazard, putting their own lives and those of people using the roads at risk.
At a less profound level, there’s nothing more calculated to enrage a gardener than cattle trampling groundcover and shrubs coaxed into life over a decade from our semi-desert conditions.
Those who can’t afford fences suffer even more – people in Mofulatshepe who used to grow vegetables for their families have given up. That’s because people who own pigs let them roam around, finding food wherever they can get it, even if it is someone else’s much-needed veggies. The real problem is that we have no pound, and local police and traffic officers feel helpless.
The best they seem able to do when they receive reports of cattle in the narrow poort leading into the dorp is to shoo them into the veld, waving at them as though they were chickens.
Given the ineffectiveness of our local authorities, I was impressed this week to read the case of Thobezweni Zozi and the minister of police, along with the police at Qumbu. My interest was even greater because that very morning I had chased away half-a-dozen goats who believed it in their culinary interests to sample some particularly delectable indigenous shrubs in my garden.
Zozi’s story is that the police have impounded his 27 goats and he wants them back. He bought them in 2007 from Mavambani Notununu, paying via instalment.
There’s still a small outstanding balance to be settled. He and Notununu agreed that ownership would only pass to him once he’d fully paid for the animals.
Meanwhile, he would take possession of the goats. He said they were all still registered in Notununu’s name and she kept the stock card, pending his final payment.
Then on Valentine’s Day last year, police impounded his goats, allegedly suspecting they had been stolen.
Now they won’t give back the animals even though Notununu signed an affidavit confirming the details as provided by Zozi.
According to the police, they carried out a stock check in the area, but while Zozi brought his animals to them, as they requested, he “failed to produce a stock card”.
The police said the matter could be solved very simply: Zozi should simply produce a stock card and he could get back the goats.
The case was first heard by the magistrate’s court, where it was ruled that the police had acted lawfully because Zozi couldn’t prove he had the animals legally.
The magistrate also said Zozi was not allowed to be in possession of the stock until he could show he had a legal right to keep the goats.
Zozi appealed, saying he disagreed that the police could continue to keep the animals.
According to the police, the fact that Zozi couldn’t produce a stock card created a reasonable belief on the part of the police that the animals were stolen.
But the high court questioned whether the police interpreted the law correctly.
They could only keep Zozi’s goats if they had a reasonable suspicion that an offence had been committed. That was not the situation in Zozi’s case.
The police themselves said no one in the area was known to have stolen stock, but they asked the whole community to bring their animals to the police and account for them.
As to Zozi’s goats, “no one ever indicated that he had stolen the goats”.
In other words, the only justification for the police action against Zozi was his failure to produce a card and, the high court held, those weren’t good enough grounds to hold the goats.
The police have been ordered to release the animals to him immediately and to stop “further unlawfully interfering with (Zozi’s) possession” of the stock.
Maybe you sympathise with Zozi, maybe not. But from my point of view, I devoutly wish our local police were half as vigilant as those in Qumbu.
Even platteland idyll needs good policing
Livestock roaming the pavements is charming – until residents’ food gardens are raided.
* Carmel Rickard is a legal affairs specialist. Email [email protected] or visit www.tradingplaces2night.co.za
** The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Newspapers.
Pretoria News