Making room: Facilitating the testimony of child witnesses and victims Commissioned by the Centre for Child Law, University of Pretoria February 2015 2015 Making room: Facilitating the testimony of child witnesses and victims Published by: Pretoria University Law Press (PULP) The Pretoria University Law Press (PULP) is a publisher at the Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria, South Africa. PULP endeavours to publish and make available innovative, high-quality scholarly texts on law in Africa. PULP also publishes a series of collections of legal documents related to public law in Africa, as well as text books from African countries other than South Africa. This book was peer reviewed prior to publication. For more information on PULP, see www.pulp.up.ac.za Printed and bound by: BusinessPrint, Pretoria To order, contact: PULP Faculty of Law University of Pretoria South Africa 0002 Tel: +27 12 420 4948 Fax: +27 12 362 5125
[email protected] www.pulp.up.ac.za ISBN: 978-1-920538-34-7 © 2015 TABLE OF CONTENTS FOREWORD v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS vi 1 Introduction 1 2 Background 3 3 Quantifying compliance: Where we were compared to where we are 7 3.1 Intermediaries 8 3.2 Separate child witness testifying rooms 10 3.3 CCTV systems 11 3.4 One-way mirrors 12 4 Reported experiences: A qualitative view of court services for child victims and witnesses 14 4.1 Eastern Cape 15 4.1.1 Lusikisiki Court 15 4.1.2 Engcobo Court 16 4.1.3 Qumbu Court 17 4.1.4 Ngqeleni Court 18 4.1.5 Mthatha Court 18 4.1.6 Concluding reflections on the Eastern Cape 20 4.2 Free State 21 4.2.1