Every edition of The Bench should have a face that is not only the President’s. This month that face belongs to Advocate Yolynn Denness — an Advocate in South Africa, an active member of the Judicial Officers Alliance of South Africa, and, before the robe, a professional who worked inside the forensic units of the South African Police Service.
That combination is not a curiosity. It is a working education. Colleagues who have come through the forensic services arrive at the Bar, and at JASA, knowing what a chain of custody actually feels like in a laboratory that is tired. They know the difference between a DNA entry and a completed case. They know why a sexual-offence trial waits, and why a magistrate who is asked to postpone “for the lab” is not being difficult. They have seen the exhibit bag before it became a paragraph in an affidavit.
Adv Yolynn Denness
Advocate • JASA member • formerly SAPS forensic units
The country is living through a forensic season that would test any officer’s patience. Parliamentary figures this winter put the SAPS DNA backlog in the hundreds of thousands of exhibit entries, a large share of them older than the 90-day mark, some of them tied to rape, murder and sexual offences against children. Those numbers are not Adv Denness’ biography. They are the reason a colleague with forensic-unit experience is a gift to a professional association that sits closest to the first court the public actually meets.
She is JASA’s official Master of Ceremonies. At serious meetings and at the Alliance’s functions she convenes the room with composure and elegance, and she brings life to gatherings that would otherwise stay only on the agenda. She helps at every level of the work — from the platform to the quiet labour that makes a function hold together.
She advocates for the rights of victims and is firmly victim-oriented. That orientation is how she reads a file and how she speaks about a complainant. She comes from a strong forensic background in the South African Police Service.
JASA is honoured to count her among its members. The Alliance is not a spectators’ gallery. It is built by people who have done the unpopular work — in a laboratory, on a roll, in a consultation room — and who then choose to stand with judicial officers rather than merely appear before them. A member who can translate a forensic delay into plain language for a magistrate is doing exactly what the covenant asked for: joining the rooms that usually do not speak.
JASA is honoured to count her among its members. We admire her professionalism, and we honour her service to this covenant.
What JASA is — a short card for new readers
The Judicial Officers Alliance of South Africa is a national association of judicial officers and of the people who walk with them. It grew out of the long argument that magistrates are not a junior administrative class. Under the founding presidency of Mr Neelan Karikan it has said, in public and on the record, that it is a covenant rather than an ordinary trade union: a pact that binds judicial officers to attorneys, advocates, prosecutors, traditional leaders, court staff and the families who wait on wooden benches.
The programme is not mysterious. A single judiciary in which Magistrates’ Courts are treated as courts under s 166. Conditions of service that match the work. Accountability that does not end at a farewell tea. Mental health treated as part of s 165(4). And a public voice that can go on television without forgetting the colleague who will never be asked onto television. Membership is not a badge. It is a decision to stop arguing alone.
If you read this page and you are not yet in the room, the addresses are on page 10. Bring a colleague. Bring a plant if you must. Leave the cynicism with the security officer at the door.