Pretoria - Members of the Tembisa Tactical Response Team arrested for the alleged torture and murder of a man in Ivory Park have lost their bid to claim damages against the Minister of Police and the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA).
The 10 officers claimed damages, before the high court sitting in Johannesburg, for unlawful arrest and prosecution. Although they had faced murder and torture charges, the court at the end of the trial acquitted them due to a lack of evidence.
They subsequently instituted civil proceedings against the police and NPA, in which they each claimed hundreds of thousands of rand in damages following their alleged ordeal.
But Judge Edwin Molahlehi barred them from instituting these proceedings on technical grounds. He found that they had not complied with the law, which stated that plaintiffs who institute legal proceedings against organs of the State must, within six months of the alleged incident, inform the State of its intention.
The 10 officers in this case said they did not need to, as the NPA and the police fully knew that they were going to be claiming compensation.
The Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid) arrested the officers in August 2015, at the Tembisa SAPS. They were accused of torturing a suspect – Khuthazile Mbedu – while questioning him in connection with the robbery of motor vehicles at Kempton Park.
It was claimed that while on their way to the Tembisa police station, they assaulted Mbedu with a shocking device. He later died of his injuries in hospital. The alleged incident took place in December 2014, but the 10 were only arrested months later.
The arrested officers appeared in the Tembisa Magistrate’s Court, and were remanded in custody for about three days before being granted bail.
The SAPS and the NPA, faced with the damages claim, complained that the officers did not follow the law in instituting the claim, nor did they ask for condonation to do so.
The officers, in turn, said that there was no need to apply for condonation because the parties signed a pre-trial document wherein the police and the NPA stated that they had suffered no prejudice in the process of preparing for the trial.
Judge Molahlehi said there was no dispute that the plaintiffs had failed to serve notice of their intention to sue the government within the prescribed six months, or at all.
However, the plaintiffs contended that they were entitled to proceed with the suit because the defendants (the police and NPA) waived their rights to invoke the relevant provisions in law as they had signed a pre-trial minute relating to the matter, which meant they agreed that the matter could go on trial.
But the judge found that the law was there to be followed, and where there was non-compliance with the provisions of a statute, the court would have no jurisdiction to entertain such a matter in the absence of condonation.
Thus, the judge said, they could not proceed with their action against the police and the NPA to recover any damages they claim they had suffered.
Pretoria News