6 killers freed after lawyer absconds

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Pretoria - Six men convicted of a string of charges, including three of murder, and each sentenced to an effective 18 years in jail, are returning to the streets. This is because an attorney (now acting magistrate) absconded from her duties as assessor, saying the proceedings took too long for her liking. The six convicted killers had the charges against them overturned by the Supreme Court of Appeal after serving slightly more than three years of their 18-year sentences. Five justices of the court found that because the assessor, identified as a Ms S Solomons, refused to return to the High Court until the end of their case, the trial was deemed irregular in law. They commented this was a clear case of absconding and that Solomons had been derelict in her duty as an assessor.

As part of their order they referred their judgment to the Magistrate’s Commission and Legal Practice Council to investigate whether she was fit to serve as an officer of the court.

Solomons’s excuse for not being present for the remainder of the murder trial was that she never anticipated it would take so long. She thought it would take a few weeks, but it ended up taking months.

She explained she was losing money as a practising attorney while she had to sit on the bench. She was also at the time offered a position as a magistrate, which she did not want to let slip through her fingers.

The accused were tried in the Western Cape High Court and Solomons was one of two assessors who assisted the judge on the bench.

Seven months and 22 witnesses into the trial, Solomons one day simply did not arrive. A sick note was given to the judge in which it was said she was booked off for three days due to anxiety.

The trial was postponed for a few days, but Solomons did not return. She was eventually found at the Upington Magistrate’s court where she acted as a magistrate.

The judge demanded an explanation and she wrote him a letter, in which she said the trial took too long and that she had suffered financially as a result.

She also explained she was accepted as an acting magistrate and did not want to lose this opportunity.

Solomons said she stressed and panicked and as she had to financially take care of her family, she decided not to return.

She argued there was, in any event, another assessor on the bench.

She apologised for her conduct. The judge meanwhile decided to go ahead with the trial without her as he reasoned the interest of justice would not be served with her continued presence against her will.

The six accused, however, turned to the Supreme Court as they said, by absconding, she denied them a fair trial and right to have their evidence heard by every member of the court.

Justice Halima Saldulker, who wrote the appeal judgment, stressed the importance of assessors in law and the role they played in criminal trials.

The law also prescribed that an accused is at all stages of the trial to be tried by the court as constituted when the trial commenced, subject to the exceptions of severe illness and death.

“Any deviation can only have but one result: that the proceedings are quashed,” Justice Salduiker said.

Pretoria News