The criminal justice system in the Eastern Cape and the rest of the country is being brought to its knees because the country’s two main criminal forensic science laboratories have been unable to process DNA and other evidence for almost a year.
Thousands of blood, semen and other DNA samples are piling up at the country’s two SA Police Services (SAPS) criminal forensic laboratories in Cape Town and Pretoria due to a funding and supply chain crisis which has left them without essential chemicals, consumables or contracts in place to service and calibrate sensitive equipment.
Some 28,000 samples have piled up over an 11-month period at the Cape Town laboratory alone because it is not being supplied with the essentials, SAPS chief forensic analyst Lieutenant-Colonel Sharlene Otto said in the high court in Makhanda on Tuesday.
Cape Town is the main laboratory servicing the Western, Eastern and Northern Cape provinces.
Otto was summonsed to give evidence under oath about the year-long delay of DNA evidence analysis in two separate cases of child rape set down to be heard in the same court.
Although Otto only spoke on the effect of the crisis on the laboratories themselves, the knock-on effect on the entire criminal justice system will be devastating.
Most court cases, particularly rape cases, can often not proceed without DNA evidence.
If not quickly corrected, the almost year-long crisis is also likely to prove to be a devastating blow against this country’s war against gender-based violence.
It is directly contrary to president Cyril Ramaphosa’s recent promise that government would do all it could to capacitate the criminal justice system in its fight against the rape scourge.
This included a promise from the president that Port Elizabeth would get its own stateof-the-art DNA laboratory to speed up rape cases in the Eastern Cape’s courts.
Instead, lack of funding and care by government has left the existing two SA Police Services laboratories — which have world-class equipment and top technicians — dysfunctional because of a deficit of the most basic and essential chemicals and consumables.
Combined with this appears to be some sort of dispute over contracts to regularly service and calibrate the sensitive equipment used. If the equipment is not annually serviced, the results can be called into question in court.
Otto said she did not have first-hand knowledge on the financial and contractual issues leading to the crisis the laboratories faced, and could only speak to what she had been told and the direct effect on the labs which did such essential work to keep the criminal justice system going.
The country’s top criminal laboratory technicians have had to sit on their hands for almost a year as sealed samples pour into their offices for urgent testing.
Otto said the samples were vacuum-sealed, secure and carefully catalogued so there was at least no danger of them disappearing, getting mixed up or being contaminated.
Acting judge Miki Mfenyana was asked to consider the evidence simultaneously but to apply it to two separate rape
The country’s top criminal laboratory technicians have had to sit on their hands for almost a year as sealed samples pour into their offices for urgent testing
If the equipment is not annually serviced the results can be called into question in court
trials.
A Somerset East resident is alleged to have raped a sevenyear-old child in May last year. The other is a 35-year-old, who is accused of raping an eightyear-old boy in Adelaide in April last year.
Both cases have had to be repeatedly postponed due to the absence of the DNA evidence.
Advocate Nickie Turner told the court she was ready to proceed with both cases — even without the DNA evidence — but if the men demanded the use of the DNA evidence in possession of the state then the trial could not continue.
Both the men’s lawyers, Helen McCallum and Charles Stamper, indicated their clients would plead not guilty and would require the DNA samples be admitted into evidence.
Otto’s evidence will be devastating on many levels.
Now that the crises faced by the two laboratories is common knowledge, most accused will be demanding DNA results which — if available — could ensure their convictions.
Instead, courts are likely to at least grant bail to many who have been sitting in jail awaiting trial for almost a year.
Otto said if the labs ran as they should, both results and the reports on the two cases could be ready within two weeks.
But with a backlog of 28,000 similar cases, and with a crisis that is far from over, this is unlikely to happen.
She said regular and timeous requisitions for the essential chemicals and consumables had simply not been filled.
On Wednesday, Dr Michael Reddy, who is reportedly in charge of forensic services in Pretoria, is due to give evidence that may explain the crises.