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Stealing Dockets 2
| Date: |
20 March 2005 12:00 |
| Producer: |
First Edit
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| Show: | Carte Blanche |
In November last year a Carte Blanche investigation showed just how easy it was to make dockets 'disappear' from two police stations in KwaZulu Natal.
At Phoenix police station we showed, on undercover footage, how our 'would-be docket thief' helped himself to piles of dockets, casually paging through witness statements and evidence.
And at Durban Central police station, we handled theft dockets, and this fraud charge. We even read the statements in a kidnapping docket involving a six-year-old child.
In the case of both police stations, had we chosen to, we could have removed any part of the contents of these dockets or simply walked out with the whole thing.
SAPS KwaZulu Natal spokesman, Vish Naidoo, was as shocked as we were.
Supt. Vish Naidoo (KZN SAPS spokesperson): 'We know of dockets that go missing, or are stolen, and we've never seen footage of it like I've experienced now.'
Despite endless media attention, police dockets continue to go missing from police stations and courts across South Africa.
But in KwaZulu Natal a small team of dedicated people at Durban Magistrate's Court seem to be putting a spoke in the wheel of crime and corruption when it comes to the disappearance of dockets.
The National Department of Justice launched the Court Process System, or CPS, in Durban, in 2000. Suzette Steyn heads this project, intended to pilot the idea of a paperless court where physical dockets no longer exist.
Suzette Steyn (CPS Senior Support adviser): 'There's no words really that you can compare our system to the paper docket system.'
The CP System is simple. Every document, picture or piece of evidence found in a docket is scanned and stored in a huge database. This means, if a docket goes missing, a copy of the original can be reprinted at the click of a button.
In 2004 Suzette and her team replaced 74 missing dockets, some as thick as a hundred and seven pages.
Suzette: 'All the info is there, because why? Of what we are doing here.'
The original plan was for dockets to be scanned in as soon as they were opened at a police station. The CPS team at the Durban court would have added their scanned in court documents to the electronic docket on file later, but the system never took off at SAPS level.
Devi Sankaree Govender (Carte Blanche presenter): 'One would have thought that the South African Police Services would welcome any opportunity that would stop or at least curb the blatant disappearance of dockets at police stations.
But they pulled out of the CPS project in June 2004.
Not wanting to give up on the system, the CPS team at the courts have absorbed the SAPS workload, scanning in nearly 38 000 dockets, and just under 450 000 pages.
Suzette: 'I'm very proud to work on a system like that and I feel, and I think all my people are feeling that way.'
Suzette showed us how the system works. Once caught and arrested, a suspected criminal is captured once again, this time by the CP System. We went down to the holding cells, a place known at the courts as 'The Grill'.
Suzette: 'As the accused is coming in, we're taking their photographs and fingerprints and put it on the system. So that will link up with your docket eventually.'
The system uses state of the art biometric fingerprint security. Once your fingerprint is scanned, no one can pretend to be you, even if they cut your finger off.
Suzette: 'It has to have warm blood running through to use it on the system, otherwise it won't work.'
And anyone who uses the computer system - from court clerks to magistrates - must also log in with their fingerprint, identity number and a smart card.
Suzette: 'Nobody can hack into the system and if anybody logs into the system, you can trace it... you know who it is.'
Magistrate Melanie de Jager uses one of 300 CPS-linked computer terminals at Durban Magistrates Court and sees the system's benefits every day. If a docket, or any part of it, is missing - like a charge sheet, cases no longer have to be postponed or withdrawn.
Magistrate Melanie de Jager (Durban Magistrates Court): 'So you just basically go onto the system and you can reprint your charge sheet as a duplicate charge sheet to take the matter from there.'
According to both Melanie and Suzette, prisoners in 'The Grill' facing serious charges often intimidate other prisoners into swapping identities. The serious offender will plead guilty to the lesser offence and walk away.
Melanie: 'Later on, they would realise but there's a problem with the identity. By then that person is gone already and there's no way or very seldom that you're going to trace him.'
Using CPS, Melanie claims she can't be caught out. By entering the correct case number a photograph of the accused, taken at their first court appearance, pops up.
Melanie: 'According to the system, it would appear as if the wrong person is appearing before the court, so would you kindly stand down.'
Administrative duties, like filling in detention warrants, are now processed electronically by the CPS, freeing up court orderlies to keep a close eye on the accused.
Melanie: 'Because fire arms and dangerous weapons have been handed via parcels from the gallery to the prisoners.'
Devi: 'According to both the Chief Magistrate in Durban and the National Department of Justice, this electronic system is working, speeding up the wheels of justice and fighting against the ever-increasing tide of lost and stolen dockets. But now it seems as though the CPS is about to disappear too.'
The Durban Magistrates Court was originally chosen to pilot the project as part of a vision to transform the criminal justice system into a modern, efficient and effective one. The CP System seemed to match all the criteria. But now they say this 'miracle cure' has become a financial headache for the national office. In this email from their office they make it clear that CPS is costing too much money in terms of staff.
John Webb (Carte Blanche presenter) met with Memme Sejosengwe , Chief Director of Court Services at the National Department of Justice in Pretoria.
Memme Sejosengwe (Chief director of court services): 'Courts are under a lot of strain from a human resource point of view. We would want to see the system being properly supported by people who would be permanent in the system, but that is a wish because it might not happen in the next year or two.
When the CPS was set up in 2000, temporary staff were employed on contract for two years. Five years later the system is still manned by non-permanent staff, who now work on contracts renewable every two months. But as of Friday this week, none of the 17 temporary staff at CPS have had their contacts renewed for the 1st of April.
Suzette says, by taking her staff away, they are effectively closing CPS down.
Suzette: 'To take them away, there's nothing... there's nothing! This whole CPS system will collapse.'
But Memme is adamant that the National Department do not want to shut the project down. They just want to replace the temps with staff already employed permanently within the system, like the clerks of the court.
Suzette: 'The clerks can take over, but there's also a shortage of clerks.'
Suzette also argues that the clerks won't cope, their workloads are already heavy. This is where the National Department of Justice's logic seems to fail them. They also seem to be unsure as to who will take over.
Memme: 'We don't really have the permanent staff at this stage that we can draw from the courts.'
Losing five years of experience is also costly.
Suzette: 'The system is running smoothly because of these people's experience - they [were] here from the beginning. They build up, they learn and you can't really take it away.'
Magistrate Melanie De Jager agrees. She says you can't put a price tag on justice.
Melanie: 'I think that it is one of those issues that you need to find the money to make a system like this work in the interest of all the South Africans.'
The National Department would not commit to a definite answer on the future of CPS.
John Webb (Carte Blanche presenter): 'Can you give us an idea on the amount of money that can and will be available to the CPS?'
Memme: 'John, you put me on the spot on that one. I don't think at this stage I can be able to with certainty say X amount of money will made available for the system.'
But with no money and no staff, the options seem limited.
IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER:While every attempt has been made to ensure this transcript or summary is accurate, Carte Blanche or its agents cannot be held liable for any claims arising out of inaccuracies caused by human error or electronic fault. This transcript was typed from a transcription recording unit and not from an original script, so due to the possibility of mishearing and the difficulty, in some cases, of identifying individual speakers, errors cannot be ruled out.
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