A visitors book is a security measure. So is a working panic button.
Security is a section 165 question
Organs of state must assist and protect the courts. A hammer in a courtroom, a shooting in a passage, an assault on a court manager while nobody comes — these are how independence dies in a building that still has a crest on the wall. Ask whether the magnetometer works before the first case is called, whether cells are searched, and whether the officer on the door has a radio that reaches a human being.
How to deal with seniors — an etiquette that is also law
A Chief Magistrate and a Regional Court President carry administration as well as a roll. An acting magistrate carries a court that someone else still owns on paper. The relationship is not feudal. It is constitutional courtesy. Van Rooyen recognised one office, with different rooms. Ask for a meeting. Bring the file, not the grievance. Seniors: do not use the acting complement as a sponge for every part-heard. Mentorship is a reserved judgment read together, a recusal discussed before it becomes a rumour, a warning given in time.
Wellness — still not a circular
A children’s court in the morning, a sexual-offence trial after lunch, a protection order at four o’clock and an interview pack at night is not a personality type. It is a workload. Pay remains the unfinished sentence. A magistrate in debt review is not a gossip item. Sleep is part of the work. A reserved judgment written at one in the morning is seldom the court’s best sentence.
• Do not stack the worst files back-to-back without a break that is an actual break.
• Keep SADAG on the chambers board: 0800 567 567, SMS 31393. Emergency 10111.
• If a colleague’s humour has gone, walk across the passage.
A note from Neelan Karikan. We are understood first by the colleague who knocks, and only then by the crest on the wall. Authority that will not open a door is only furniture.