Special Hearings — Legal Hearings — 1997-10-27

KLAUS PETER CONSTANTIN OTTO VON LIERES UND WILKE: : It was established with effect the 1st November 1983.

MR VALLY: : But you were Attorney General since 1981?

KLAUS PETER CONSTANTIN OTTO VON LIERES UND WILKE: Yes, but I was appointed for Kimberley and I only came to Jo'burg on the 1st of November 1983. I just took over the post.

MR VALLY: : There have been submissions by individual attorneys as well as by legal organisations that there has been a consistent failure to prosecute members of the Security Forces, especially regarding allegations of assault on detainees.

KLAUS PETER CONSTANTIN OTTO VON LIERES UND WILKE: : Again, obviously we received representations of offences committed, these representations, the result of the representations are reflected in the three and a half thousand dockets that were submitted to us for consideration, and I've already told you that we only had sufficient evidence to prosecute in about fifty percent of the cases. So obviously where representations were made we couldn't accede in each individual case to prosecute because we also had a duty to ensure that we had a minimum amount of evidence which was of the quality that a reasonable court could possibly convict on what we had in the docket, and naturally there would have been cases where people wanted people prosecuted , but where we had an insufficiency of evidence. Whether, because people lied to us, or because that evidence wasn't available I can't tell you, but the fact is we did prosecute in cases and we did not prosecute in other cases.

MR VALLY: : The perception was that the Attorney General's office and the Security Police acted in collusion, and to take it further, certainly in the Transvaal, the perception was that whenever there was insufficient evidence, the detainees were detained ...(tape ends)

KLAUS PETER CONSTANTIN OTTO VON LIERES UND WILKE: .....was solely a police matter which was conducted in terms of Section 29 of the Internal Security Act, the Attorney General has absolutely no say about that, until this Act was changed or amended - when was this- '93 '94 around about there. Before that the Attorney General had absolutely no say and it was at the discretion of the Commissioner of the Police how long a person would be detained under Section 29. What happened during those Section 29 hearings, I here what you say, I have no personal knowledge of it. The fact of the matter is however, Madam Chair, that we the Prosecution never used, as far as my knowledge goes in the WLD, any Section 29 statement made by any witness, by any accused as evidence against them, because the wording of Section 29 indicated that that could never have been a freely and voluntary made statement.

YASMINE SOOKA: : Mr Von Lieres, perhaps I could step in here. I think the work of the Commission essentially is to investigate what happened during the past, and to try and learn from that lessons which enable us to go forward without gross human rights violations occurring again. I've listened to your presentation very very carefully, and I've listened to your responses to the questions, but nothing that has come through has seemd to pierce the veil that you are in a sense surrounding yourself with. But out there, in the world that lawyers operated in, things were going wrong.
 There have been many people who have come forward before the Commission over the last two days, who've come to tell about their experiences at the hands of the justice system, and to talk about the fact that their perception was, that the Attorneys General were there to serve a particular political order. Now, I don't think we want you to feel that you need to be defensive about it, but I haven't heard you say anything about why it is that people found it necessary to establish People's Courts. Why they believe that the justice system didn't service black people, why it was that there was such an extraordinary reliance upon the bail certificate which the Attorneys General issued and which up until a certain judge changed that position, the reliance upon that bail certificate, Attorneys General very often were in particularly in political cases refusing bail. The fact that there was an extraordinary reliance on the evidence given by police. How all of these lead to the perception that something was wrong at the level of the Attorneys General. I haven't heard you say that at all. All I've heard about is what a wonderful system the office of the Attorney General was, particularly in the WLD.
 Now we are not here to find people guilty, we are here to talk about what it was that went wrong, and I would hope that when you answer the questions, that we could try and have some kind of sense or analysis of why it was that people have those perceptions. Lawyers who practiced in the system have come here before us and said that. The Bar Council who cherish their independence have come forward and say so, so could you please in the vein of what we're trying to do here, which is to look at what went wrong, because all of us, the role players in the legal system have to accept some kind of responsibility for the fact that things went wrong.