Glenmore activist Velile Ben Mafani says the justice system is abusing him after his case was postponed yet again this week.
Glenmore activist Velile Ben Mafani says the justice system is abusing him after his case was postponed yet again this week.
Mafani is defending a case of malicious damage to property following his regularly repeated protest action of throwing a brick through a window of the high court in Grahamstown. He has meanwhile been found guilty of failing to appear in court, after missing a court hearing on 12 September. This was because, he told authorities afterwards, he'd been consulting with his ancestors.
In his most recent appearance in the Grahamstown Magistrate's Court, last Monday, Mafani was forced to represent himself after his legal aid attorney withdrew. Following a lengthy discussion with Mafani, magistrate Ntsoki Moni told Mafani that she had made observations prompting her to suggest he undergo psychiatric observation.
Drama unfolded this Wednesday, then, when the prosecutor told Moni that another prosecutor had told him it was not necessary for a psychiatric assessment to be done. This was because a doctor had assessed Mafani in 2007.
Moni replied sharply, saying she had made an order and that what she required was not the opinion of a prosecutor, but that of a medical doctor.
I have made an order and the prosecutor is not a medical doctor, Moni said.
Mafani raised his hand shortly after the prosecutor asked for a postponement and tried to raise issues not addressed during his court appearances. But Moni interrupted him, insisting that she was focusing on the rock-throwing incident on 6 January.
Among the issues Mafani tried to raise was that decisions made by the Director of Public Prosecutions had not been mentioned at all during his court appearances.
Mafani is currently in custody after Magistrate Makhetho Pheko found him guilty of failing to appear in court on 12 September and ordered him to pay a fine of R1 500 or spend three months in prison.
The case was postponed today for Mafani to undergo psychiatric observation.
