OPEN LETTER TO RAMAPHOSA, LAMOLA, ZONDO | My rape case is killing me. Give me a trial date

Rape survivor Andy Kawa writes an open letter to President Cyril Ramaphosa, Justice Minister Ronald Lamola and Chief Justice Raymond Zondo, saying she can no longer continue being a victim of the criminal justice system, after her damages claim case against the police was postponed once more.

I was abducted, attacked, robbed and repeatedly gang-raped 13 years ago on 9 December 2010 near Kings Beach in Gqeberha.  

I managed to escape in the early hours of the next morning and was assisted by a group of joggers. 

My case was not properly investigated, and in 2012, I brought a case against the Minister of Police for the failure of the police to fulfil their constitutional duty of an effective search and investigation in the case. 

In 2018, Judge Sarah Sephton at the Eastern Cape High Court in Gqeberha found that the police's negligence and their behaviour caused me harm. The SAPS' appeal to the Supreme Court of Justice in 2020 continued my traumatisation.

I got a reprieve in 2022 when the Constitutional Court agreed with the High Court decision that the failure of the police to conduct a reasonably skilled and diligent search when my captors were holding me for about 15 hours, and subsequently, an effective investigation, made me suffer serious psychological and psychiatric trauma. It is 22 months since the Constitutional Court judgment and my damages claim case still has no trial date. 

It has been a 13-year legal battle of rape, traumatisation, depression and fighting for my survival, and justice for gender-based violence victims in South Africa. The rape and negligence that I suffered at the hands of the SAPS led to my demise, depression, continual traumatisation by the judiciary, loss of livelihood and death of my former self. 

READ | Mamphela Ramphele: Open letter to Ramaphosa: Justice delayed is justice denied

In a breakthrough, Detective Shilajoe announced in February that a DNA sample taken from a suspect arrested for robbery in 2020, showed a match to my rape case. Police subsequently arrested the suspect in February. A criminal case will flow from prolonging my trauma. 

My hope for imminent closure has been shattered because the damages claim case against the SAPS that was set for 19 February was postponed, and as far as I am aware, no date set for the trial has been set.

I cannot continue to be a victim of the criminal justice system. I need closure and justice. The noose is tightening around my neck with every passing second. Please save me by allocating a date to my case in this quarter.

Where is the urgency of dealing swiftly with GBV cases in South Africa to prevent further traumatisation? Where is all the talk by the president of addressing GBV cases swiftly? Where is the urgency placed on the judiciary, especially in dealing with cases of GBV? Is this all a lie to the people of South Africa?

Justice delayed is justice denied, all the more so when it concerns the egregious miscarriage of justice in a GBV case like mine.

Legal history was made when the highest court in this land held the police accountable for failing in their constitutional duties towards me as a citizen, and a vulnerable one at that. And yet now, 13 years after my life-altering trauma, I am still being denied justice through these unjustified, inordinate delays.

The courts should not be party to this miscarriage, and I respectfully urge that my day in court be sooner rather than later, in the interests of justice and in order to uphold the integrity of the courts.

- Andy Kawa is a rape survivor. 

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