- Advocate Juliet Makgwatha has secured convictions in some of the most gruesome rape and murder cases that gripped South Africa.
- Makgwatha said working on cases involving children and women was dear to her because of the scourge of gender-based violence in the country.
- She told News24 she was most satisfied when she saw victims get back their lives.
She didn’t intend to study law but she is one of the National Prosecuting Authority’s (NPA) most formidable State advocates, fighting for the some of the most vulnerable people in society.
Advocate Juliet Makgwatha, who worked as a senior prosecutor in the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions in Pretoria until almost a week ago, said she became a lawyer by chance.
“The only careers I thought I could do were nursing or teaching, and I think this was due to limited exposure to career guidance,” she said.
However, her curiosity led her to enquire about studying law and when she realised she qualified, she left her social work studies and enrolled to study towards a BProc degree, which is specifically designed for those who want to practise as attorneys.
“I was shy, would always sit alone and keep to myself, but law changed all of that. It opens your mind. The career I chose forces me to speak to strangers. I love it,” Makgwatha said.
As a prosecutor, Makgwatha went on to handle and secure convictions in some of the most brutal gender-based violence cases the country has seen.
READ | Mooinooi Murders: 12 life terms handed to 4 convicted of killing, raping same-sex couple
She was the prosecutor in what was known as the Mooinooi case, in which lesbian couple, Joey van Niekerk, 32, and Anisha van Niekerk, 30, were killed by a man who wanted to force them to sell their farm to him.
“Unfortunately, the main mastermind, Koos Strydom, died in the middle of the trial, but we managed to get convictions for the other accused,” she said.
Makgwatha, a married mother of three boys, joined the NPA through their aspirant prosecutor programme in 2002. Before that, she worked at Edgars.
She said:
I appreciate the experience I received at Edgars because it prepared me for what was to come. Being a cashier built my confidence in communicating with strangers, which is something crucial in my current role.
Makgwatha grew within the ranks of the NPA. In 2006, she was admitted as an advocate of the High Court, and in 2007, she was appointed as a State advocate in the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) in Johannesburg.
In 2008, she was promoted to senior State advocate within the specialist tax unit in Johannesburg. Then she moved to the specialised commercial team in Pretoria in September 2009.
In 2010, she joined the Directorate for Public Prosecutions in Pretoria, under general prosecutions, but mainly focused on prosecuting matters involving women and children.
There, she said, she was welcomed with a baptism of fire when she was allocated a case involving the murder of a little girl, Masego Kgomo, whose genitals were harvested for muti.
“It was a complicated case because we only had a confession. Every prosecutor will tell you every time you have a confession you have a problem because it is usually difficult to get it admissible in court as evidence.
“As a prosecutor, you have to fight, really fight, to have a confession admissible because sometimes the accused will deny that they made a confession or say they were forced to give the confession,” she said.
Kgomo disappeared on New Year’s Eve in 2009. At the time, she was eight years old, and her body was found mutilated, half-naked and decomposing several days later in a stretch of veld and bush.
The man convicted of her murder, Brian Mangwale, helped the family, local community and police search for the missing child.
He eventually led police to the dense bush next to the railway station in Soshanguve, where the child’s body was found.
Last year, she secured the conviction of a pastor from Benoni who had raped and sexually groomed young girls.
READ | Pastor gets two life terms in jail for raping, sexually grooming minor congregants
The 36-year-old pastor, Lucky Mfanivele Magagula, raped two girls, aged eight and nine, and sexually assaulted and groomed them along with three others between 2020 and 2022 when they would go to his house for choir practice and Bible study.
Makgwatha said prosecuting the case was tricky because the victims were young children.
There was also a 3-year-old victim who could not testify in court.
“We applied to the court to accept hearsay evidence and the evidence from the mother, which was a report of what the little girl said to her about what had happened,” Makgwatha said.
The pastor was found guilty of three counts of rape, five counts of exposing children to pornography, six counts of sexual assault and four counts of exposing genitals to children and sexual grooming. He was sentenced to two life terms in prison for rape and 15 years for the rape of the 3-year-old after he used his fingers to penetrate her.
Makgwatha said on the day Magagula was sentenced, he gave her a scripture to read.
“The scripture was Acts 6:12-14, which speaks about producing false witnesses against him. So he was saying I produced false witnesses against him,” she said.
Makgwatha said his act showed her that he could not be rehabilitated because he saw himself as a victim.
She said making a difference in the lives of victims fulfilled her.
She added:
There is that satisfaction you get after getting a conviction, and you look at the victims. These are victims that couldn’t even talk when you started the case. They are usually subdued when they come to me.
Makgwatha encouraged young girls not to let their circumstances stop them from achieving their goals.
“If I could do it, they can do it too. Just study hard and ensure you have good matric results,” she said.
Makgwatha was promoted to deputy director of the specialist tax unit in Mpumalanga and started her new job on 1 August.
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