Meeting with the Director of Public Prosecution

After three weeks of phone calls and a letter sent a month before that, I finally got to meet the Director of Public Prosecutions. The delay in meeting with her was not a surprise, things take time here. I can comfortably speculate that this is because of the lack of legal professionals in the public prosecutions service; The Swaziland Times has a weekly comment on the understaffing of the legal services, we especially need more judges at the Magistrate courts and the High court. The meeting was a chance for me to discuss the court watch programme with the DPP and if things went well, gain access to the public prosecutors library to get case law information. I am pleased to report that the meeting went better then expected. The DPP was totally on board with the aims of the programme, she could see the connection between the court watch programme and the eventual establishment of legal aid in Swaziland.

After a few weeks of reading and looking at the situation in Swaziland, I would advocate for the establishment of legal aid as being perhaps the single greatest possibility for the protection of countless number of women and childrens’ rights in Swaziland. Actually, I think I formed this opinion within a few days of landing, but decided to observe for a little bit in order to substantiate my thoughts. In the legal clinic at SWAGAA we have run out of funding that we would use to assist individuals who clearly have a legal claim, but no means to pay attorney fees. Currently therefore we can provide basic legal advice, reassure women that they don’t need to stay in the abusive relationship, that they can obtain a divorce and maintenance from abusive spouses, but, ‘er, sorry, SWAGAA doesn’t have the money to help you, you will need to find 2500 Emalangeni to pay a lawyer to assist you with that divorce.’

I am also surprised to find myself a proponent of legal aid in order to support the defendant through out the legal process. In my short time in Swaziland I have been in far too many court rooms where the defendant just does not understand what is happening; they don’t speak English, they don’t understand the legal significance of the questions they are asked, and in turn, they ask completely inappropriate questions of the survivor when they conduct their own cross examination. In that case that I referred to a few blogs back, with the two child victims of rape, the questions asked of the brave 5 year old just didn’t make sense. They were questions from a person who was not trained in legal jargon, with very little education generally, and yet expected to articulate his questions at the same level as a High Court Judge. To then also require a 5 year to make sense of such questions and respond should not be happening in a professional setting. A whole host of human rights of the different parties were being violated and yet every professional in the court was doing their best to protect the parties involved.

Meeting with the DPP was perhaps one of the strongest positive moments of the court watch programme to date. As is she says too many individuals ‘go without their story being told, and it shouldn’t be that way.’ It is great to know that there are legal professionals in positions of authority who are passionate about the need to strengthen the legal system and understand the ramifications of the lack of representation for all parties.