R90 000 payout for wrongful arrest

Fudzy said:
I'm not, I asked how do put a value to freedom? If you lose your freedom you lose your income so that would be a place to start.
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You've been imprisoned, you've been ordered around by guards, likely belittled by inmates, treated like scum and all quite wrongly. Who knows what else he may have had to endure while imprisoned.

He lost his comforts, his freedoms, his girlfriend, his reputation has been marred in the eyes of his community.

Whether he earned R3,000 per month or R30,000 per month, R90,000 for 18-months in Hell just doesn't cut it.

Freedom should never have a price, but a pittance is definitely not covering what that man had to go through and the year-and-a-half of that man's life that he will never get back.

I think his original request of R653,000 was a lot closer to what he deserved than the pathetic amount the courts decided was "good enough."
 
Compensation aside....

How many times did this man appear in front of a judge during the 8 months?
And in this time could did any judge/prosecutor take a look at the docket and see that the evidence is circumstantial.
There is something horribly wrong with the justice system if a person can be locked away for so long without adequate evidence supporting the crime.
How many other innocent people are in fact behind bars draining our judicial coffers of revenue because of poor and ineffective policing?
Our judiciary has become a cancer.
 
Lycanthrope said:
I think his original request of R653,000 was a lot closer to what he deserved than the pathetic amount the courts decided was "good enough."
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Agreed.

Reading the article again it seems like he was arrested at the end of 2008 then got out in June of 2010. So it's taken another 2 years just to come to that figure? And did he only get his court hearing in June? Wheels of justice move quite slowly.
 
Anybody got a link to the court case by any chance?

The way I read this is he sued the police for wrongful arrest. Should he not also be able to sue the justice ministry (courts & correctional services) for his incarceration?
 
In my opinion everyone involved in the case from the arresting officer to the sentencing judge should be forced to pay this guys way for the rest of his life.

Until the justice system and governments bureaucrats and elites feels the bite in their own personal pockets for their decisions, actions and indecision's, they wont feel the effects on and won't have any compassion for the plebs paying their salaries.
 
How did it happen that he was eventually released? Did he serve the full jail term or did new evidence come to light ?
 
The state cannot set a precedent. If they allow for millions to be claimed the pie gets to small to loot.
 
blunomore said:
How did it happen that he was eventually released? Did he serve the full jail term or did new evidence come to light ?
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Hard to tell from that story but the way I understand it is that he was never found guilty or sentenced for the crime. The 18 months detention was from the day of his arrest up to the point of the court case where the evidence showed him not guilty and the case dismissed. He obviously received no bail during this whole trial period. The wheels of justice turn way to slow, it's supposed to be swift.
 
ponder said:
Hard to tell from that story but the way I understand it is that he was never found guilty or sentenced for the crime. The 18 months detention was from the day of his arrest up to the point of the court case where the evidence showed him not guilty and the case dismissed. He obviously received no bail during this whole trial period. The wheels of justice turn way to slow, it's supposed to be swift.
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This is one of the biggest problems facing our justice system. The amount of people who are awaiting trial is ludicrous. This is also one of the main sources of overcrowding in our jails. The actual convicted criminals don't take up too much space, it's the ones who haven't had their day in court.
 
OrbitalDawn said:
This is one of the biggest problems facing our justice system. The amount of people who are awaiting trial is ludicrous. This is also one of the main sources of overcrowding in our jails. The actual convicted criminals don't take up too much space, it's the ones who haven't had their day in court.
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Yeah, similar problem in the US as well. There a documentary called Louis Theroux's Megajails. Huge detention centres built specifically for suspects waiting for a court hearing.
 
totally crazy, as the guy lost his wife/family and his job, as well as 18 months of his life .. R90k just does not come close to a reasonable compensation ..... where do they find these judges and how does he come to such a low figure??
 
Fudzy said:
Yeah, similar problem in the US as well. There a documentary called Louis Theroux's Megajails. Huge detention centres built specifically for suspects waiting for a court hearing.
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I actually have that, should give it a watch.

It's so sad, really. Many of these people are innocent and the stuff they go through can pretty much ruin your life. It's a difficult thing to get right, though, as you have to ensure due process is followed and attention given to protocol, but it takes so looooong. Even if the case could get thrown out very quickly, it still takes forever to get a court date, and if you're accused of a serious crime, you might not get bail. I wonder if bail is paid back if your case is thrown out or if you're absolved?
 
OrbitalDawn said:
I actually have that, should give it a watch.

It's so sad, really. Many of these people are innocent and the stuff they go through can pretty much ruin your life. It's a difficult thing to get right, though, as you have to ensure due process is followed and attention given to protocol, but it takes so looooong. Even if the case could get thrown out very quickly, it still takes forever to get a court date, and if you're accused of a serious crime, you might not get bail. I wonder if bail is paid back if your case is thrown out or if you're absolved?
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Now imagine we had the death penalty, how do you give back the ultimate freedom (life) of somebody who has been wrongfully executed?

With regards to the bottle-neck, we need to reintroduce those 24 hour courts that were running during the world cup.
 
we need to reintroduce those 24 hour courts that were running during the world cup.
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We need to reintroduce lots of things from the world cup.

For four weeks I felt like I was living in Europe.
 
Mila said:
The state cannot set a precedent. If they allow for millions to be claimed the pie gets to small to loot.
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Check my sig, they don't seem to have trouble in that area yet.
 
daveza said:
We need to reintroduce lots of things from the world cup.

For four weeks I felt like I was living in Europe.
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Strange how the eyes of the world in sharp focus on the country changed SA from the anc heaven to a safe, clean place to live eh.
 
daveza said:
We need to reintroduce lots of things from the world cup.

For four weeks I felt like I was living in Europe.
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Maybe because the crime was controlled via a moratorium on crime by the "crime bosses" themselves!
 
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