Africa-Press – South-Africa. A man arrested following an accident that claimed the lives of nine pupils a year ago has been granted R1 000 bail after approaching the High Court to appeal the magistrate’s decision not to grant it.
Nkosinathi Nelson Sibanyoni was transporting the pupils to their homes when the taxi overturned on the D267 road between Dundonald and Mayflower in Mpumalanga.
The pupils were aged 4 to 13, and according to the judgment, the incident happened when the vehicle’s brakes failed.
Seven people were killed on the scene and one died in hospital. A ninth body was discovered near the scene, the departments of community safety and education said at the time.
Sibanyoni was arrested on the scene and held in custody until he applied for bail.
However, bail was denied in the Magistrate’s Court. He then approached the Mpumalanga High Court in Mbombela to appeal the decision.
In his ruling on Tuesday, Mpumalanga High Court Judge Takalani Ratshibvumo took issue with the fact that it took more than nine months for Sibanyoni’s appeal to be prosecuted.
The judge said: “The slow pace at which the appeal was prosecuted has to be discouraged because bail, by its very nature, is inherently urgent and should be treated as such.
“Failure to adhere to this may easily result in injustice when people who should have been released on bail are incarcerated longer than necessary. A detention for a period of nine months can cause undue injustice.
“This period is long enough for one to lose employment and/or have his/her family displaced. It should only be allowed when the interests of justice demand it.”
According to the judgment, Sibanyoni argued in his appeal that the lower court erred when it denied bail because it had placed emphasis on aspects that should not have been considered for the purposes of bail.
These included stating that the community was “in danger” because of his desire to “supplement” his income by transporting schoolchildren and that he did not have a public driver’s permit (PDP).
Ratshibvumo said the State had also agreed that the lower court erred in its findings.
The State, which supported the appeal, argued that while the court captured the arguments in its bail judgment, it “failed to give clear and coherent reasons for its decision”.
The judge said what the lower court noted about Sibanyoni supplementing his income was “uncalled for, irrelevant and misguided”.
Ratshibvumo added:
The court seemed to have been persuaded that Sibanyoni not having a PDP meant that the State had a strong case, he said.
However, Ratshibvumo said no evidence was led as to the actual driving or conduct of Sibanyoni for the court to conclude that the State’s case was strong.
He said no evidence was led to demonstrate that Sibanyoni had the ability or willingness to cross the border illegally. Therefore, the judge ruled that the court erred in its findings.
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