Judge slams prosecutors for manipulating cases

Acting Judge Mohamed Ismail said the practice interfered with the independence of the judiciary and that it was unconstitutional. According to a News24 report, Travis took the prosecuting authority and the Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development to court after claiming that the Director of Public Prosecutions prevented new matters being heard by him. Travis also submitted that prosecutors controlled and manipulated the way cases were allocated to magistrates. He said if a magistrate did not agree with a sentence that a prosecutor and the defence agreed upon, the prosecutor simply took the matter to another magistrate who would agree on the sentence. To this Ismail said: ‘Objectively seen, the allocation of cases to magistrates by the prosecution would be perceived by the accused and by any reasonable person as interference with the judiciary, as the prosecution could manipulate the outcome of a trial by choosing certain presiding officers.’ Ismail directed National Director of Public Prosecutions, Jan Henning, to instruct all prosecutors working in the Pretoria Regional Court that they may not prevent new trials being put before Travis. Full report on the News24 site