According to the South African Constitution, “every accused person has a right to a fair trial, which includes the right of appeal to, or review by, a higher court”.

Furthermore, “everyone is equal before the law and has the right to equal protection and benefit of the law”.

It looks like our obsession with media devices like mobile phones could get in the way of that, though.

While at the Goodwood Magistrate’s Court on Friday, Capetonian Fazloen Hoffman was shocked to see presiding Magistrate Sean Lea on the bench texting on his phone, rather than paying attention to the court proceedings, reports Cape Talk.

She also caught court official Happy Mbababe sleeping on the job.

Let’s see the honourable magistrate’s old-man-one-finger-typing in action:

In this video, pay attention to Mr Happy Mbabane sitting just in front of the magistrate. He’s clearly struggling to keep his eyes open:

Aaaaaand Happy loses the battle with sleep:

Hoffman confronted both Mbabane and Lea after court, and their responses were pretty telling:

“I confronted Happy who chose to be verbally abusive when I told him he’s not getting paid to sleep in court. He became much more amenable when I told him I have it on camera.”

Lea’s reaction was even worse:

“Wow, the frothing at the mouth, the red eyes and shaky frame that emitted all the shouting and defensive screaming at me in the corridor was a sight to behold. Unstable and extremely scary. It’s been a long time since I was spoken to in such a manner.”

“He tried shoving his phone in my face in front of everyone and I told him to back off from me as his aggressiveness was threatening. He scoffed and blew me a kiss before marching off. He left a shocked audience in his wake.”

Since the incident, Lea has taken “special leave” and the incident is being investigated.

Definitely not his best day in court.

[source:capetalk]