A Heritage weekend arrest still has a Monday morning
People will be arrested over the long weekend. Some of their names will have been spoken in Pretoria this month. That does not change the first hour in a district court. Fairness to an unrepresented accused is still slower speech, a short explanation of what is about to happen, and a record that shows they were not merely present in the room. Do not let a year of commission evidence write the first-appearance minute for you. Heritage Day does not suspend that duty. A person who arrives without a lawyer is asking to be understood before they ask for bail. Living heritage, in this room, is the older habit of speaking plainly to the person who has the most to lose.
A working method
• Say, in one sentence, what the hearing is for, before anyone is asked to speak.
• Ask whether the person can read the document they have just been handed.
• Legal Aid South Africa, a university law clinic, or an LPC help-desk is how section 35 is given a number.
• An admission from an unrepresented accused should be slow. Repeat it. Write it. Ask whether they still mean it.
• Bail reasons are written for the next court, not for the gallery. Name the section 60 factors that moved the decision.
A court that is only efficient for people who already have counsel is efficient for a very small country. The rest of the Republic is sitting on the wooden bench outside — including the family of a woman whose name is now a police statement, and the person who has been arrested before the links are proved.
A family on a public bench is already a kind of waiting. Section 35 is not a courtesy.
If the accused's first language is not the language of the record, that is a Heritage Day question and a Monday question. Call the interpreter. Write the language pair. Do not proceed on a nod.
A note from Neelan Karikan. The greatest human need is to be understood. A person who arrives without a lawyer is asking for that before they ask for bail, and our authority begins in the way we answer.