- Magistrates face escalating threats and unsafe conditions that are undermining the justice system.
- Minister Kubayi has twice failed to attend urgent NCOP meetings on the crisis.
- The DA demands immediate security fixes, protection for high-risk magistrates, and repairs to collapsing courts.
The Democratic Alliance is calling for immediate steps to protect South Africa’s magistrates, who are facing escalating threats and intimidation simply for doing their jobs.
Last week, the Department of Justice briefed the NCOP’s Select Committee on Security and Justice after I formally demanded the meeting. This followed pickets by magistrates in KwaZulu-Natal highlighting collapsing buildings, dangerous working conditions, and unresolved remuneration issues that have been outstanding for more than a year.
Yet despite the urgency, for the second time Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi failed to attend. Her continued absence shows how lightly she takes the safety of the very people who keep our courts functioning.
Magistrates handle 95% of the country’s court work: bail decisions, violent criminal matters, and the day-to-day cases that keep the justice system running. When they are unsafe, the entire system is unsafe and violent offenders gain the upper hand.
Reports tabled in Parliament paint a grim picture. Magistrates have been followed home, threatened, assaulted in court, and in some cases forced to move away from their own communities. Others are asking to be transferred or are stepping back from their duties altogether, leaving already overloaded courts even more stretched.
No one can pretend the system is working when magistrates share toilets with accused persons, operate in buildings with no access control, or have criminals waiting outside their offices with zero security.
The DA is calling for practical interventions that can be implemented immediately:
- Functional security at all magistrates’ courts, including proper access control and secure movement of accused persons;
- Protection for magistrates handling high-risk cases, equal to what is provided to High Court judges;
- Swift, thorough SAPS investigations into any threats against judicial officers;
- An urgent audit and repair plan for unsafe and collapsing court buildings; and
- Concrete measures to retain experienced magistrates who are leaving because they fear for their safety.
If magistrates cannot work safely, South Africans cannot get justice. It’s that simple.