Nothing illustrates the perversion of the law in South Africa better than the persecution of people who obey it by those tasked with upholding it – the SAPS. Patricia Mashale, subject to a malicious prosecution arising from a civil action for acting as her oath of office as a police employee required, now fears to attend the Bloemfontein magistrate’s court for a hearing on 31 January as she has been reliably informed that she will be arrested on some new charge and detained in cells. For someone like Mashale, who has evidence of gross SAPS corruption, and who has become a champion for the rights of hundreds of persecuted and illegally dismissed police members, detention in a police cell is a likely death sentence since there are over 200 deaths in SAPS custody annually. Currently, there is a focus on prosecutions for deaths in detention during apartheid. Surely it is even more outrageous that so many people continue to die at the hands of the police in our constitutional democracy? Does nobody care?
The case for which she and her husband, another anti-corruption fighter, are due to appear arises from a civil action brought by Deputy Free State Commissioner Lesia who obtained a dubious Protection Order based on what he claimed were insulting Whats Apps circulating among a group of police members, including the Mashales. It followed Mashale’s January 2021 letter to the National Commissioner, in which she dutifully, as her oath requires, alleged corruption in appointments and promotions, in which his name was included. Lesia now claims that the Order he obtained had been breached because of an interview the SABC had conducted with the Mashales before the Order, which was subject of a recission application, was finalized. The Order was finalized a day before the programme, recorded three months earlier, was broadcast and he had been informed by the SABC that it was too late to stop the broadcast.
Since he applied for a Protection Order against Mashale in the Family Court in August.2021, Lesia has regularly appeared in court with a members of Operational Response Services and SAPS vehicles, despite his matter being a personal civil one and not a police one. In July 2022 there were eleven SAPS vehicles outside the court, and even the magistrate hearing the case was intimidated. The context is one in which there is a country-wide shortage of vehicles and members to deal with violent crime, and thousands of calls to 10111 go unanswered because of a serious shortage of operators. On 28 January there was a dangerous standoff between communities near the KZN border with Mozambique, Mozambiquans, and the local police, who locals accuse of being implicated in hijacking and contraband goods smuggling. They claim Mbazwana SAPS does not even have a functioning police vehicle. This is but one example of the rampant abuse of SAPS resources while violent crime flourishes. Management of other northern rural SAPS stations have also complained to KZN Monitor that they do not have sufficient vehicles and members to cover the large areas they have jurisdiction over, where roads are also generally bad.
National SAPS management, and the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee, have been repeatedly apprised of this waste of scarce police resources by General Lesia, on his own personal, civil, matter, yet no action has been taken to stop it. Similarly, they all know about the serious threats to Ms Mashale’s life, and why she must remain in hiding, after two attempts on her life in 2022, but no action is taken against those responsible – the very people tasked with protecting lives, the SAPS. In an urgent letter to the National Commissioner on 5 December, General Masemola was reminded that he would bear personal responsibility should the harassment and threats to the life of Ms Mashale continue. All correspondence to SAPS management is ignored for they, like ministers, treat our Constitution with contempt, including as it relates to rights to life, and to transparency and accountability. Unfortunately, even Parliament seems not to take it seriously.
In a further squandering of taxpayers’ money, the Mashale home is under twenty-four hour surveillance. This treatment of the family is also a gross violation of the rights of their eleven-year old son, deprived of his mother’s nurturing care, and living in fear of her being killed. At the end of 2021 he had to be, abruptly, moved from the school at which he was a weekly border because the family car was followed for a long distance from there to his home by SAPS members, thinking his mother was in it (she wasn’t, so they lost interest). All this has been drawn to the attention of Parliament, but the minister continues to do exactly as he pleases, and to break the law with impunity.
The case for which the Mashales are due to appear was moved from the Family Court to the Regional Court, presenting further problems. A dossier is being prepared for the National Prosecuting Authority about complicity between SAPS management bringing malicious prosecutions and senior prosecutors, and the grossly irregular shackling of people detained in court cells, even on trivial charges. After Ms Mashale was allowed to address the court during her last appearance, the magistrate agreed that independent prosecutors from another province would handle the case and that, because her life was in danger (this November appearance was ten days after the failed assassination attempt) she did not have to appear in court in person provided she had legal representation. It must be stressed that even courts are not safe for people who are under threat of death : In May 2015 Glebelands resident Sipho Ndovela, a witness in a murder case, who had also been charged maliciously by the Umlazi SAPS, was shot dead in the court grounds despite the SAPS having been warned that his life was in danger (see ‘Assassination at Umlazi Court’ under 2015 reports)
Given that she is in hiding because her enemies are in the SAPS, and this latest threat, how can Ms Mashale now attend a court in which a phalanx of police, abusing taxpayers’ money, are waiting to pounce on her and arrest her on some new, trumped up charge, with potentially fatal consequences for her? Why is no one doing anything about our descent into an apartheid police state?
ADDENDUM : ROUTINE TREATMENT AT BLOEMFONTEIN REGIONAL COURT : SEE FURTHER INFORMATION WHICH FOLLOWS IMAGE
Above is a picture of Colonel C, a middle-aged experienced forensic social worker in the Family Violence Unit in the Free State, who was illegally dismissed at the behest of a colleague who seems to have been threatened by her competence, and then criminally charged with crimen injuria by the same colleague, in collusion with prosecutors, who sent her to cells for the day, where she was shackled (two prosecutors are allegedly related to a member of SAPS management who targets police members exposing corruption). There was no substance in the charge and, after months of trauma, it was withdrawn, with the magistrate having harsh words for police members who were abusing court processes in this way). Her years of experience (which the colleague lacked) is lost to the police and the victims she assisted. When a complaint was lodged with the Director of Public Prosecutions in the Free State the response was that shackling of people appearing in court was routine. Even courts, it seems, ignore the South African Constitution
The Violence Monitor 