Magistrates want their security beefed up, say they fear for their lives

Some of the country's magistrates said that they fear for their lives every day in and outside of courtrooms.
 
In the past two months, two men were shot and killed in separate gang-related incidents outside the Mitchells Plain and Athlone magistrates courts.
 
And in April, a man was fatally shot inside the Wynberg Magistrates Court.

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Magistrates staged a protest at Parliament on Wednesday, while others picketed outside their various court buildings to raise concerns about safety in and around lower courts.

In April 2021, a magistrate presiding over the case involving alleged underworld figure Nafiz Modack was shot and wounded at a car wash in Mfuleni.
 
Magistrate Mondli Nhlangulela from Durban said that the situation was the same everywhere.
  
"Sometimes we deal with dangerous people or sometimes you deny bail to a certain person and a certain member of the family might not be happy. When you walk out of the gate, you walk out alone, you go to your house, and you are alone there - nobody is looking after you."
 
Magistrate Denni Leppan has called for their security to be beefed up.
 
"We'd love to be protected like judges, who have their own separate entrances and separate lifts. We don't have it."
 
The magistrates are pushing to be recognised as part of a single, unified judiciary rather than being treated as lesser judicial officers.

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