Special Hearings — Legal Hearings — 1997-10-27

MR LAX: You see on our reading of the minutes of the state security council it's patently obvious to us that where they wanted an action like detain they used the word detained. Where they wanted something else to happen they used words like "eliminate." And it was surprising that in most of those cases those people were eliminated. So I just am not surprised.

MR NEIDT: I've never seen the reports or memoranda to their people on grassroots level but after the Goniwe inquest was reopened I looked into their files and I saw that word and that was contained that people should be "elimineer, uit die gemeenskaps verwyder word." I can't recall the exact words. But that was actually contained in the report. Chairperson I think I may just add here that as far as the department of justice is concerned we received certain requests as far as state of emergency and the matter Mr du Bruin referred to but these things were dealt with secretly. I must say I was very surprised after all the years I was in the department of justice when I learned of a place like Vlakplaas. And I'm quite honest. I never knew of the existence of this place. I never knew that the police met there. I discussed it with some of my colleagues. I've never heard the word.
 The police were doing their certain things they had secret funds, we never had secret funds. At one stage I became aware, I think it was 1992, that there was talk of that the police wanted to set up a secret fund for the department of justice. And I immediately went to Mr Coetzee and I said to him but this is totally unacceptable. My budget has been open to parliament for scrutiny over the years and if the police set up a secret fund for the department of justice I want to know what it's about. And then I was given to understand I think that was concerning the Upington 15 or 16 people who were charged there and there was a lot of complaints in the newspapers and they were feeling that or somebody was feeling that the department of justice was handling the liaison of this properly and for that reason they wanted to set up a secret fund. I stopped it immediately. I said I'm not involved in this. If we say anything we're going to say it in open and Mr Coetzee was furious. He took it up with the minister of police and it was stopped immediately. A lot of things happened. I know it's no excuse but I may just add it was an eye-opener I couldn't believe what I read.

CHAIRPERSON: Potgieter?

MR POTGIETER: : Thank you chair lady. Advocate Neidt just one issue. Were there to your knowledge during the emergency years any attempts in litigation involving the justice to neutralise the effect of progressive judgements - let's call it that way? Notably in KwaZulu Natal (...indistinct) judges to neutralise that by engineering matters to be heard by more conservative benches to give conflicting decisions to neutralise those decisions which were not in the interest of the department or the ministry of justice as it was seen at that stage.

MR NEIDT: Chairperson the only facts that I'm aware of in this particular instance is during once against during the Hoekstra report there were definitely complaints I think from lawyers and also from other people and there were suggestions that certain judges were selected to do certain specific cases. And the Hoekstra commission also reported on this. The judges who were to preside over cases were the prerogative of the relevant judge president. He decided on that. I must say since that time and we also looking for answers I've had an opportunity to look somewhere else because this is also worrying me that if something like that did happen I think there's a solution and I found it in Germany. That a case is set down for a specific court but not for a specific judge. And you never which judges is going to preside in that specific court. If you have ten courts then there will be a court role with case number one is in that, that. And only the judge president and two other people know which judge is going to preside over that particular case. And I think that's perhaps something that we should look into in South Africa. To get away from that criticism that a particular judge is selected for a specific case. I think it will do a lot of good to the justice system and legitimise it in the eyes of the public. Because I've heard in national security cases that even some attorneys and advocates say they're going to ask for a remand tomorrow because they don't want that judge to hear their case. And I think that's totally wrong, they shouldn't know which judge is going to try their case. And but I'm not aware of anything in this regard.

CHAIRPERSON: Thank you Mr Neidt. Mr Neidt we will probably be calling upon you as we have already done I think with Mr du Bruin in terms of those files. We have had our researchers and investigators going to have a look at those files. But I think we grateful for the way in which you've organised this presentation so that we can have an easy reference to the questions that we need to have answered. We certainly going to be using your statistics to check that against the numbers of cases that we have on our own data base in terms of both the detention matters and the other statistics that you provide. So we will be calling on you again I think this isn't really the end and I have heard Mr du Bruin say that all the documentation in terms of the magistrates, the letters, the visits those kind of reports still exist in those files. And I think that's quite important because we would want to have a look at that and the review files as well. We grateful to your team. Mr Rasafarti as well for coming along and making his submission and thank you very much. I'm sorry that we've kept you so late though.

MR NEIDT: Chairperson I thank you very much. I'm just glad we got an opportunity today because there was obviously a lot of work involved. I think it was, as far as I'm concerned an honour for us to appear here and put our position as honestly as we could. But I want to thank the two gentlemen here and other officials who were involved in compiling this report. I can tell you they worked virtually through the night because to collect these statistics you often had to work through thousands and thousands of files.
 The last thing that I just want to say and the Minister has already given me instruction. We are inundated with queries from various people to have a look at these files. And I'm rather worried. You know what happened to the case record of honourable president, certain volumes disappeared from the registrars office and we don't want this to happen. And the minister has given instructions but I can tell you Mr du Bruin has his hands full to keep people out of these files because we can't sit with every person who comes in there. And perhaps we can get some assistance from you we would be glad if the files could betaken away and locked up somewhere else and kept safely there than.

CHAIRPERSON: Ja. I think it is quite important about where they actually going to held in future and perhaps some thought needs to be given to that. Thank you for coming. Could we call our last witnesses for the day; the Centre for the Study of Violence and Lawyers for Human Rights please?
 Could we ask people to take their seats again please. Graham and Vinard before you actually sit can I ask you to stand so that Richard can ask you to take the oath or the affirmation please?

COMMISSIONER: Can you just briefly give us your full names?

MR SIMPSON: Graham Simpson.

MR JAYCHAN: Vinard Jaychan.