The respondent, a 42-year old man, was charged with child trafficking and rape of five minor girls aged between 9 and 13. The trial court convicted him of trafficking the children and sentenced him to eight years in prison, but not guilty of rape. The Supreme Court affirmed the trial court verdicts after the state appealed, but increased the sentence. The court found that child-complainants’ testimonies were too inconsistent to prove rape.
An army officer was convicted for breaching an interdict issued by a magistrate ordering him not to assault his wife or prevent her or their child from leaving their home. He appealed to the Transvaal High Court which declared that Section 3(5) of the Prevention of Family Violence Act was unconstitutional to the extent that it placed the burden on him to disprove his guilt.
The accused took a concoction of herbs with the intent to procure an abortion when she was six months pregnant and buried the fetus. She pled guilty to contravening the Termination of Pregnancy Act, which bans abortions subject to enumerated exceptions. She was sentenced to nine months imprisonment that were suspended on the condition that she complete 305 hours of community service. The issue under review was whether the conviction was proper without medical evidence to prove that the ingested herbal concoction could induce an abortion.
In determining sentencing for a woman convicted of murdering her spouse, expert testimony regarding battered woman syndrome is more relevant to the sentencing decision than to the assessment of the legality of the defendant's actions. The court reviewed a line of cases involving women convicted of murdering their abusive partners. Although the court cited a variety of mitigating factors that should be considered (e.g., the sustained nature of the abusive conduct, the presence of children in the home,etc.), it held that foremost is the actual effect sustained domestic v
The appellant, convicted of hiring two workers to kill her abusive husband, argued for a reduced sentence. The court held that a lesser sentence is permitted only when there are "truly convincing" circumstances or where a life sentence is disproportionate or unjust.
This was a review of a sentence imposed by a trial magistrate at the request of the regional magistrate. In the opinion of the regional magistrate, the sentence imposed by the trial magistrate was too harsh and a community service sentence would have been just in the case. The accused was charged with physical abuse as defined under the DVA. The 20-year-old accused assaulted the complainant, his18-year-old wife, over a denial of conjugal rights. He was sentenced to two months’ imprisonment with a further two months suspended.
This judgment was issued as part of the assessment proceedings subsequent to a judicial review by the state. This review investigated systemic and individual failures resulting in police officers committing widespread violent and traumatic sexual assaults and rapes of women and girls during the civil unrest in October 2019. The court was tasked with assessing the amount of compensation to be awarded to the 18 applicants on whose behalf the review was conducted.
The accused was tried for beating and raping his girlfriend A.S. (the third complainant), sexually abusing and beating their five-month-old male and female twin children, and murdering his son by throwing him on the floor. Medical experts testified that the injuries on the twins suggested sexual and other physical violence. Denying the charges, the accused testified that A.S., the children’s mother, beat the twins and assaulted the accused.
The defendant, an 18-year-old uncle of the complainant, was criminally charged for housebreaking with intent to rape and raping his 12-year-old niece. The complainant alleged that the defendant, on three separate occasions, came to the complainant’s home and raped her.
The appellant, M., was tried before a regional magistrate for the rape of his six-year-old daughter during 1989. He was convicted and sentenced to ten years imprisonment, which he appealed. The Court held that, especially given the age of the complainant at the time, the question of a consensual sexual relationship is moot and further stipulated that the sexual history of the complainant is not relevant in a charge of rape, unless the Court specifically judges it to be so.
