Dear Portfolio Committee on Justice and Correctional Services,
I am part of a group of Human Rights Activists and after years of investigations and gathering of evidence we are now at your front door for a solution regarding the conduct of Children's Courts.
The presiding officers in Children's Courts are not handling the Court procedures according legislation that was provided by the Department. The newest legislation is the directive MCR 55 but none of the rules made regarding filing of documents and the timelines are implemented in the Children's Courts.
We have families who filed documents with the Clerk's but when biological parents attends the set down of Court procedure they found that the documents has been removed. The presiding officers don't read any documents and we have writing where presiding officer Verster of the Springs Court admitted that she is only making Orders on the recommendations of the biased previous regime social worker.
We have fight the previous regime discriminative system in the Children's Courts for the past years but none of the legislation processed and registered by the Department of Justice are implemented in the Children's Courts.
Lately we have problems with the next officials, Mrs Truter in the Pretoria Children's Court. Mrs Venter at the Pretoria North Children's Court and Mrs Botha of the same Court. Mr Kuyp of the Willowmore Children's Court.
Mrs Truter insist that the biological parents of 9 children must sign the biased agreement drawn up by a person who was never appointed by any Court as a curator ad litem. The MEC of the Department of Social Development informed the biological parents not to sign such agreement because after investigation of the matter by DSD they found that reunification services must be implemented with immediate effect. The biological mother of the 9 children got sick of Covid 19 and couldn't attend the Court procedure on the 11 January then presiding officer Truter threatened the mother if she don't attend court procedure on the 12 of January 2022 then she, Mrs Truter are going to issue a warrant of arrest. This is a human rights violation since the mother fid file documents for postponement of the matter because she is waiting for her attorney to became involved with the matter now she has been threatened by the presiding officer with a warrant of arrest. The very same documents were removed from the file by the previous regime social worker who want to finalise the matter in absence of the parents just because she wants to collect her payment of R40 000 for each child in this matter.
This means that the previous regime social worker will collect R360 000 for the 9 children she has removed without obtaining a court order which is Unconstitutional removal. This past Friday me and other human rights activists had a meeting with the DSD regional committee in this regard. Mrs Shabudin chaired the meeting and are now aware of the child trafficking that is busy to be conducted by the previous regime social workers.
But now DSD can't interfere with the Court procedures that are not conducted according the Uniform Rules of Court, the Rules Board Court of Law the MCR 55 legislation and the Magistrates Rules of 1944.
The Clerks in the Children's Courts don't check the Locus Standi of the previous regime social workers who bring applications to the Children's Courts.
These social workers should provide a document to the Clerks that they are registered as Advocates on the Bali Board as they advertise that they can
do statutory work in Children's Courts under the old welfare and population Act 110 of 1978. Or at least they should provide their evidence that they are qualified with a NQF4 as required by DSD under the National Qualifications Framework before they enter any Court procedures in the Courts
Another violation by the Clerks in the Children's Courts is that they give away the files to the previous regime social workers to take the files out of the Court building. The social workers then remove documents that was filed by the biological parents and place hoax documents in the files that doesn't carry any stamps. Then the Clerks allow the previous regime social workers to talk to the presiding officers alone in the offices without any other persons involved in the matter. Thanks