Hundreds of trials arising out of the suppression of resistance began in the period under review, according to press reports.
The Johannesburg Financial Mail pointed out that the trials reported in the newspapers were the tip of the iceberg. Lawyers interviewed by the papers were overwhelmed by work from trials developing out of resistance to the apartheid state: 'a firm of attorneys contacted by the paper says it handles around three such cases a day at Sebokeng, Daveyton, Boksburg, Heidelberg and even Theunissen.' The same firm was also handling cases being heard in courts in the Eastern Cape and appeals on behalf of township residents who were convicted in magistrates' and regional courts.
Another newspaper related the increased activity in the courts to the approaching white election: '... scores of pre-election political trials' were underway and 'hundreds more could be brought to court as the government gears up for the 6 May elections.'
One attorney told a Johannesburg newspaper that her firm was handling five political cases a day, while another said he and his partners had handled 30 political cases each month since last September. A third said that his firm expected to handle more cases of public violence this year than last, when they dealt with between 750 and 1,000 cases. This was because statements had been taken from many emergency detainees which it was felt would be used in subsequent trials.
The full scale of courtroom activity in the opening months of this year becomes apparent when it is understood that there are many trials involving unrest-related charges like public violence in which the accused are not legally represented. According to a Black Sash monitoring group in the Western Cape many 'small-town' lawyers refuse to handle political cases so that 'hundreds of public violence and related cases in rural areas may go undefended'.
'The accused [in such cases] are often without legal representation, tried in areas far from public and media gaze ..., and while proceedings are usually open to the public, many [such trials] ... take place in semi-rural areas far from the main centres of information'. As a result of this and 'the government-imposed silence' there can only ever be a 'partial focus' on the vast majority of political trials.
Punishment by Trial Figures issued in February by the Ministry of Justice indicated that in the year ending 30 June 1986 there was a 41 per cent conviction rate in public violence trials compared with 56 per cent the year before. The number of prosecutions rose nearly four times to 3,972 from 1,003 in the period 1984–5. The fall in the conviction rate combined with a quadrupled number of prosecutions reinforces the view that the state has increasingly used the judicial process as a means of harassing its opponents by engaging them in what one paper called 'a prolonged, traumatic experience'. According to the Black Sash report, this involved frequent brutality and torture during questioning and while awaiting trial, deliberate delays in the preparation of charge sheets, use of bail conditions to harass, denial of bail as a punishment, loss of schooling and jobs, loss of wages, heavy travelling expenses to and from court, and physical and mental ill-health.
