Thursday 10 June 2004

This site will be updated on 17 June  2004 at 17:30

People - Mense

• New ear for accused and abused
• Hy hardloop vir twee

New ear for accused and abused

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Malané Bosman

PAARL's accused and abused have a new man to hear them out and to cast a verdict.

Elkan Mametse (43) is a large man with an easy smile and feet planted firmly on the ladder that has taken him from court interpreter to the cloak of regional court magistrate.

Mametse matriculated  near Pretoria in 1980 before   obtaining a B.Juris. degree from the University of the North.

He started his legal career as court interpreter in  Garankuwa.  Within a year Mametse was prosecuting in that very  same district court.

HERE TO LISTEN. Magistrate Elkan Mametse

In 1989 he rose to prosecutor in the regional court, and two years later he was appointed magistrate in the district court, for both civil and criminal hearings.

In 1997 Mametse achieved a LL.B. degree through Vista University.

In 1999 he was appointed regional court  magistrate in Garankuwa until 1 May 2001,when he changed roles to that of judicial trainer at a college in the north.

Mametse is married to a teacher and they have three sons, aged 13, 9 and nine months.

He has never set foot in the Cape and finds it a "wonderful place, rural as I am accustomed to, with people who care about  each other."

Although siTswana is his mother tongue and he is fluent in English, he speaks no Xhosa. Mametse did most of his prosecuting in Garankuwa in Afrikaans.

"I will use a court interpreter because it is proper and the accused may elect the language of his choice.

"My Afrikaans is a bit rusty, but when you talk the language, you become more fluent and I know that in due time, I will no longer need an interpreter."

Mametse will be permanently on the regional court bench from 1 September.

"Everything is so different in the Cape.

"The  rain  is colder and the mornings darker. But the people are so friendly," says the man who prefers to give a broad smile for the camera, lest he looks too forbidding.

TITUS DENNIS gaan vanjaar vir die tiende keer aan die wêreld se taaiste ultramarathon, wat oor 90 km tussen Durban en Pietermaritzburg strek, deelneem ter nagedagtenis van sy swaer wat jare saam met hom die wedloop gehardloop het.

Na sy swaer se dood het hy 'n belofte gemaak om hulle droom om tien Comrades marathons te hardloop, en sodoende 'n permanente nommer in die wedloop te kry, te volbring.

Dennis van die Paarl, en sy swaer, Harry Cloete van Wellington, het hul eerste Comrades in 1995 gehardloop.

Nadat hulle die wedloop voltooi het, het hulle besluit om tien marathons saam te voltooi en sodoende hul permanente nommers te verwerf.

In September 1999 het 'n hartaanval skielik Cloete se lewe tot 'n einde gebring terwyl hy besig was om voor te berei vir die Voet van Afrika Marathon.

Dennis het toe besluit om sy swaer se wens om tien van die wedlope te hardloop te bewaarheid. Hy hardloop sedert Junie 2000 die Comrades ter nagedagtenis van sy swaer.

Hy oorhandig elke jaar aan die einde van die wedloop sy medalje aan Cloete se vrou, Louisa.

Die oorhandiging gaan altyd gepaard met trane wat rol en wonderlike herinneringe van Cloete as mens, wat, volgens Dennis, 'n toonbeeld vir almal was.

* A local athlete is running the Comrades in honour of his deceased brother-in-law.

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