For the past three months, my colleagues and I have been attending the Wynberg Magistrates' Court in Cape Town to follow the case of an attack and rape of a lesbian woman in the township of Gugulethu. My first visit to the Wynberg court was to hear the outcome of the accused's bail application, and my first impression was not positive. The court house is cold, loud, chaotic and there is no sense of formality. Even the prosecutors, attorneys and police officers were in jovial spirits, laughing and chatting to each other in between proceedings—evidently fully desensitised and oblivious to the severity of the atrocities they were dealing with. I kept asking myself—how on earth would a rape survivor be able to confront such an environment?
As it turned out, the proceedings for the bail application that day were postponed for a future date, but I quickly learned that this was more or less the standard procedure. I sat in the gallery and watched the procession of accused rapists come before the magistrate, and it was just one postponement after the other.
The bail application for our case ended up being postponed four times before we were finally able to hear the result—the magistrate awarded bail at R500 with the condition that the accused stays out of Gugulethu. For all those that were in the courtroom supporting the rape survivor that day, the result was unequivocally disappointing and frustrating. The accused had committed one of the most horrendous crimes possible, yet he was allowed to roam free whilst the rape survivor still endured physical and emotional trauma from the event.
But as if to rub salt in the wounds, the supporters of the survivor had to haul themselves down to Wynberg five times to hear the result, with each time taking half a day out of their schedule. For the survivor and her family, friends and supporters, how can they be seriously expected to repeatedly take time off work, organise transport and sit through the chaotic proceedings of the court?
At the moment, my colleagues and I are committed to following the trial at Wynberg, and so far the trial has been postponed twice. These tedious and unrelenting postponements during the case are taking their toll. A few months ago the courtroom was overflowing with activists and protesters, all clad in t-shirts which voiced their disgust and outrage towards the accused. This week at court, there were only three that turned up along with myself and my colleague.
My experience of the Wynberg court—and I imagine the other courts to be the same—is that it is the ultimate site of revictimisation for rape survivors. The courts should be sites centred around survivors seeking justice, yet the hectic and un-welcoming atmosphere coupled with the absurd amount of postponements does little to encourage survivors to persevere.
The long and drawn-out proceedings are also a strong deterrent for journalists who wish to report on such cases. For media practitioners who are on tight schedules and constant deadlines, there is no way that they could possibly find the time and energy to even follow one case. And there are hundreds of these cases.
A big part of gender rights and gender equality is not just about legislation and policy, it is also about allowing women a safe and un-traumatic passage to justice. How can we expect women to be constantly revictimised through the courts, when it is the courts that should be serving the survivors and society as a whole? We need to start treating rape survivors with respect, through courts that acknowledge the plight of survivors and which seek to minimise the chance of revictimisation.
First publised in Cape Times, 5 July 2010.
