BIB - And will you still say the same thing when the ConCourt finally fixes this mess once and for all and returns the verdict back to CH or will there be cries of foul and possible bribery accusations such as during the High Court verdict where the 2 accessors overpowered Masipa, wrote the verdict for her and forced her to read it against her will?
Pistorius doesn't have any valid grounds to take his case to the Con Court.
He has been well and truly stitched up by Masipa and by his legal team.
Why Masipa? Because she acquitted him of murder with a judgement that revealed no legal basis for doing so.
Not only did she not show the correct legal reasoning for acquitting him of murder (DD or DE), she made no finding that he acted with lawful intent or that he had a valid defence of PPD.
Additionally, as far as Derman's 'expert' evidence was concerned, she rejected it. She said she did not accept that his disability or his vulnerability or his anxiety caused him to not think of the consequences of shooting. The only part of his evidence that she accepted was that he has a confrontational disposition, fight rather than flight.
Lastly, she gave him no allowance for his state of mind during the trial. She said that she did not accept that his ability to give evidence was compromised by factors such as PTSD or medication. She said that under cross-examination he was evasive - that can only mean deliberately untruthful.
If Pistorius wanted to appeal any of Masipa's findings, the court to appeal to was the SCA, not the Constitutional Court. He had no incentive to however, because he had been acquitted of murder, but technically he can't now decide that it is a constitutional matter because he was very happy at the time but isn't now, and therefore lost his right of appeal to the SCA. The Con Court isn't there to do what the SCA was established to do, which is to look at whether cases have been unfairly judged on the evidence, that much is clear - it has to be a matter of general and wider public importance.
Why his legal team? - well because Masipa never made a finding of PPD and she never accepted his disability and his state of mind caused him to do what he did. Therefore there was always going to be a very good chance that if the State appealed the murder acquittal, Pistorius would be on very shaky ground indeed. Therefore, Roux did not represent Pistorius' best interests when he failed to appeal Masipa's legal and factual errors on behalf of his client, regarding all the things he wants now to slip in via the back door to the Con Court.
Roux's only opportunity to establish that PPD and lawful intent was made out in the trial court judgement was at the SCA. He didn't because it wasn't, and therefore he couldn't, and despite what they are saying in the Con Court appeal, it wasn't the State who needed leave to appeal the errors regarding Masipa's handling of PPD, why would the State argue that? That would be to represent Pistorius for him!
It might be hard for supporters to digest, but all of the points Pistorius is now taking to the Con Court should have been appealed in the SCA. The SCA did not err, Masipa did, the SCA worked with Masipa's findings, it had to, and all their complaints can be seen to be complaints against her Judgement.
Pistorius' supporters did not get the deal they thought they did with her - her acquittal was a double bind for him. If anyone 'discriminated against his disability' as he alleges, it was Masipa. Yet he gave up his right to complain, when he celebrated his (temporary) victory at Roux's little house party.
Don't be disappointed when it gets thrown out of the Con Court.
