Musician Arno Carstens appeared on a charge of drunken driving in the Cape Town Magistrate's Court on Friday.
|||Musician Arno Carstens appeared on a charge of drunken driving in the Cape Town Magistrate's Court on Friday, January 27, 2012.
Magistrate Eric Louw postponed the matter until June 15, 2012 at the request of State prosecutor Carmen Daniels.
Daniels said the State was still awaiting the outcome of written representations by defence lawyer Milton de La Harpe to the National Director of Public Prosecutions (NDPP).
She said the NDPP had not yet made a decision on the representations.
Court records showed that Carstens was arrested on December 19, 2011 and released on R500 bail the next day.
Further details of the arrest were not reflected on the records.
The State turned down De La Harpe's request that the charges be withdrawn and that Carstens do community service.
“My client lives in Johannesburg... and each court appearance costs him a lot of money on a return flight ticket,” he said.
“The prosecuting authorities at the Cape Town Court referred the case to the NDPP because they did not want to make a decision.”
De La Harpe argued that the NDPP was taking far too long to make a decision because representations were forwarded to the body in August.
All that had happened so far was that the NDPP had informed him in writing that it had requested a report from the Western Cape Director of Prosecutions, and that it would soon return to him with a response on the decision. - Sapa