The Democratic Alliance (DA) today launched a provincial Court Watching Briefs Unit in Gauteng as a means to specifically assist victims and families of victims of farm attacks and to put those attackers behind bars.

The situation in our rural areas is now at crisis point, with a sharp rise in terrible attacks and murders in June and July including at least 20 farm attacks in Gauteng. The horrific triple homicide in the Northern Cape a week ago, has shaken the farming community nationwide.

Despite this success by the SAPS in this case, the National Director of Public Prosecutions Advocate Shamila Batohi says the Criminal Justice system is buckling in the face of rising crime and dismally low prosecution rates. Indeed, last year prosecution rates for serious offences were as low as 2%.

The Watching Briefs initiative was introduced by the Department of Community Safety in the DA-led Western Cape to act in accordance with the Constitutional provisions contained in Section 206 (3) of the Constitution, which provides that every province is entitled to monitor police conduct and report inefficiencies.

The work of the Western Cape unit successfully prevents cases being dropped from the roll and helps achieve convictions.

The DA's Rural Safety Watching Briefs Unit will act as an unofficial go-between between the police, the prosecution services and the victims of farm attacks. We will stand by the side of the victims of these horrific crimes, and assist them through the sometimes daunting Police and Court processes.

Our MPs and MPLs will act in the best interests of a victim or victims of a farm attack and as a go-between between the police, the prosecution, the victims or other involved persons or parties, in order to facilitate the proceedings and to achieve an optimum outcome. This has worked in the WC for years and attackers are seen to receive life sentences on a regular basis.

It will be approached as a method of assisting the various state entities, along with victims, to achieve, as unobtrusively as is possible, a quick, just outcome of any investigation or prosecution.

In Gauteng many farm attacks go unreported as farmers have lost faith in the ability of SAPS to follow up incidents with timely fingerprint and detective work. The unavailability of vehicles and resources to assist with visible policing activity is a significant contributor to the high number of incidents in Gauteng.

A watching brief can and should do the following:

• monitor police conduct;
• monitor the effectiveness and efficiency of the police service;
• promote good relations between the police and the community;
• assess the effectiveness of visible policing; and
• liaise with the Shadow Cabinet member responsible for policing or prosecutions with respect to crime, policing and prosecutions.

One of our own Councillors, herself a farmer, was brutally attacked over five years ago, and despite DNA proof, and endless Court appearances, the alleged attacker is still free, and living near her.

Why and how could this possibly happen in South Africa today?

What chance does a farmer have to see justice done if he, his family, a farm manager, a farmworker or a visitor to the farm is attacked or murdered?

With our Rural Safety Watching Briefs initiatives the DA hopes to improve those chances

Farm attacks are terrorising our rural areas and as long as the attackers get away with their crimes, the horror is just going to continue. With this initiative, the DA seeks to ensure that criminals end up behind bars as soon as possible and the violence comes to an end.