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Section Eleven Of The Constitution Of South Africa
Section Eleven of the Constitution of South Africa, part of the Bill of Rights, guarantees the right to life. This section has been interpreted to prohibit the death penalty, but not to prohibit abortion. It also has important implications for euthanasia, self-defence, the use of force by law enforcement, and the provision of life-saving healthcare. Under the heading "Life", the section states, in full, "''Everyone has the right to life.''" Unlike the right to life in many other human rights instruments, this section is unqualified; it does not make an exception for the death penalty, but neither does it explicitly state that the death penalty is forbidden. Death penalty One of the first decisions by the Constitutional Court was the 1995 case of ''S v Makwanyane'', in which the court addressed the constitutionality of the death penalty. The principal judgment, by President of the Court Arthur Chaskalson, found the death penalty to be unconstitutional not because it violated the ri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Constitution Of South Africa
The Constitution of South Africa is the supreme law of the Republic of South Africa. It provides the legal foundation for the existence of the republic, it sets out the rights and duties of its citizens, and defines the structure of the Government. The current constitution, the country's fifth, was drawn up by the Parliament elected in 1994 in the South African general election, 1994. It was promulgated by President Nelson Mandela on 18 December 1996 and came into effect on 4 February 1997, replacing the Interim Constitution of 1993. The first constitution was enacted by the South Africa Act 1909, the longest-lasting to date. Since 1961, the constitutions have promulgated a republican form of government. Since 1996, the Constitution has been amended by seventeen amendment acts. The Constitution is formally entitled the "Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996." It was previously also numbered as if it were an Act of Parliament—Act No. 108 of 1996—but, since the p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arthur Chaskalson
Arthur Chaskalson Order of the Baobab, SCOB, (24 November 1931 – 1 December 2012) was President of the Constitutional Court of South Africa from 1994 to 2001 and Chief Justice of South Africa from 2001 to 2005. Chaskalson was a member of the defence team in the Rivonia Trial of 1963. Career Born in Johannesburg, Chaskalson was educated at Hilton College (South Africa), Hilton College and later graduated from the University of the Witwatersrand with a BCom (1952) and LLB Cum Laude (1954). In 1963, Chaskalson, along with Bram Fischer, Joel Joffe, Harry Schwarz, George Bizos, Vernon Berrangé and Harold Hanson (lawyer), Harold Hanson, was part of the former President Nelson Mandela's defence team in the Rivonia Trial, which saw Mandela sentenced to life imprisonment. Chaskalson left a very successful legal practice to become a human rights lawyer, helping to establish the Legal Resources Centre, a non-profit organisation modeled after the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fun ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Capital Punishment In South Africa
Capital punishment in South Africa was abolished on 6 June 1995 by the ruling of the Constitutional Court in the case of ''S v Makwanyane'', following a five-year and four-month moratorium since February 1990. History The standard method for carrying out executions was hanging, sometimes of several convicts at the same time. Mandatory death penalty for murder was abolished in 1935, comparable to the similar act passed in the United Kingdom in 1957. Before this reform, vast numbers of delinquents were sentenced to death without having their sentences carried out, with only 24% of capital verdicts being carried out in the period 1925 to 1935 (including 7% of verdicts against women). The reform was supported by Prime Minister Jan Smuts, who decried the draconian rates of nominal sentences, favouring greater discretion for judges which were ultimately brought into the penal code with a rule of extenuating circumstances, which largely were maintained into the Criminal Procedure Act, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
High Court Of South Africa
The High Court of South Africa is a superior court of law in South Africa. It is divided into nine provincial divisions, some of which sit in more than one location. Each High Court division has general jurisdiction over a defined geographical area in which it is situated. The decisions of a division are binding on magistrates' courts within its area of jurisdiction. The High Court has jurisdiction over all matters, but it usually only hears civil matters involving more than 400,000 rand, and serious criminal cases. It also hears any appeals or reviews from magistrates' courts and other lower courts. The court and its divisions are constituted in their current form by the Superior Courts Act, 2013. They replaced the previous separate High Courts, which had in 1997 replaced the provincial and local divisions of the former Supreme Court of South Africa and the supreme courts of the TBVC states ("Bantustans" created by the apartheid government in the 1950s). Important officers in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Transvaal Provincial Division
The Gauteng Division of the High Court of South Africa is a superior court of law which has general jurisdiction over the South African province of Gauteng and the eastern part of North West province. The main seat of the division is at Pretoria, while a local seat at Johannesburg has concurrent jurisdiction over the southern parts of Gauteng. Dunstan Mlambo has been the Judge President of the division since 1 November 2012. History A High Court was established for the South African Republic (the Transvaal Republic) in 1877, while the Witwatersrand gold fields were visited by a circuit court subordinate to the High Court. Both courts ceased to exist as a result of the British victory in the Second Anglo-Boer War. In 1902, two superior courts were established for the new Transvaal Colony: the Supreme Court of the Transvaal in Pretoria, and subordinate to it the High Court of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. On the creation of the Union of South Africa these courts became the Transvaal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christian Lawyers' Association V Minister Of Health
''Christian Lawyers Association v Minister of Health'' is a case in which the Transvaal Provincial Division of the High Court of South Africa ruled on the constitutionality of the Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Act, the law which governs abortion in South Africa. The Christian Lawyers Association claimed that abortion violates Section Eleven of the Constitution of South Africa, section 11 of the Constitution of South Africa, Constitution, which provides that "Everyone has the right to life." The government noted an exception (a demurrer) on the grounds that constitutional rights do not apply to fetuses and that there was therefore no case to answer. The court accepted the government's argument and the case was dismissed. References * Abortion case law Abortion in South Africa Gauteng Division cases South African persons case law 1998 in South African law 1998 in case law {{SouthAfrica-case-law-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Choice On Termination Of Pregnancy Act, 1996
The Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1996 (Act No. 92 of 1996) is the law governing abortion in South Africa. It allows abortion on demand up to the twelfth week of pregnancy, under broadly specified circumstances from the thirteenth to the twentieth week, and only for serious medical reasons after the twentieth week. The Act has been described by the Guttmacher Institute as "one of the most liberal abortion laws in the world". History Before the enactment of the Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Act, abortion was governed by the Abortion and Sterilization Act, 1975, which only allowed abortions when the woman's mental or physical health was seriously threatened, there was a likelihood that the child would be born with a severe handicap, or the pregnancy was the result of rape or incest. It required the approval of two doctors independent of the one performing the abortion, and in some cases also of a psychiatrist or a magistrate. The Choice on Termination of Pregnancy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Extradition
Extradition is an action wherein one jurisdiction delivers a person accused or convicted of committing a crime in another jurisdiction, over to the other's law enforcement. It is a cooperative law enforcement procedure between the two jurisdictions and depends on the arrangements made between them. In addition to legal aspects of the process, extradition also involves the physical transfer of custody of the person being extradited to the legal authority of the requesting jurisdiction. In an extradition process, one sovereign jurisdiction typically makes a formal request to another sovereign jurisdiction ("the requested state"). If the fugitive is found within the territory of the requested state, then the requested state may arrest the fugitive and subject him or her to its extradition process. The extradition procedures to which the fugitive will be subjected are dependent on the law and practice of the requested state. Between countries, extradition is normally regulated by t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mohamed V President Of The Republic Of South Africa
''Mohamed v President of the Republic of South Africa'', 001ZACC 18, is a 2001 decision of the Constitutional Court of South Africa dealing with the legality of the South African government's actions in handing over Khalfan Khamis Mohamed to United States authorities. The court ruled that the South African government may not extradite a suspect who may face the death penalty without seeking an assurance from the receiving country that the suspect will not be sentenced to death. See also * Section Eleven of the Constitution of South Africa * ''S v Makwanyane'' (abolishing the death penalty in South Africa) * ''Soering v United Kingdom'' (similar ruling from the European Court of Human Rights) * '' United States v. Burns'' (similar ruling from the Supreme Court of Canada) References External links Text of the judgmentfrom SAFLII The Southern African Legal Information Institute (SAFLII) is the largest online free-access collection of legislation and case law from South Afri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
S V Makwanyane
''S v Makwanyane and Another'' (CCT 3/94) was a landmark 1995 judgement of the Constitutional Court of South Africa. It established that capital punishment was inconsistent with the commitment to human rights expressed in the Interim Constitution. The court's ruling invalidated section 277(1)(a) of the Criminal Procedure Act 51 of 1977, which had provided for use of the death penalty, along with any similar provisions in any other law in force in South Africa. The court also forbade the government from carrying out the death sentence on any prisoners awaiting execution, ruling that they should remain in prison until new sentences were imposed. Delivered on 6 June, this was the newly established court's "first politically important and publicly controversial holding." Chance The Court held that, in practice, there was an element of chance at every stage of the process of implementing the death penalty: The outcome may be dependent upon factors such as the way the case is inves ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bill Of Rights (South Africa)
Chapter Two of the Constitution of South Africa contains the Bill of Rights, a human rights charter that protects the civil, political and socio-economic rights of all people in South Africa. The rights in the Bill apply to all law, including the common law, and bind all branches of the government, including the national executive, Parliament, the judiciary, provincial governments, and municipal councils. Some provisions, such as those prohibiting unfair discrimination, also apply to the actions of private persons. South Africa's first bill of rights was drafted primarily by Kader Asmal and Albie Sachs in 1988 from Asmal's home in Dublin, Ireland. The text was eventually contained in Chapter 3 of the transitional Constitution of 1993, which was drawn up as part of the negotiations to end apartheid. This "interim Bill of Rights", which came into force on 27 April 1994 (the date of the first non-racial election), was largely limited to civil and political rights (negative r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Constitutional Court Of South Africa
The Constitutional Court of South Africa is a supreme court, supreme constitutional court established by the Constitution of South Africa, and is the apex court in the South African judicial system, with general jurisdiction. The Court was first established by the South African Interim Constitution, Interim Constitution of 1993, and its first session began in February 1995. It has continued in existence under the Constitution of South Africa, Constitution of 1996. The Court sits in the city of Johannesburg. After initially occupying commercial offices in Braamfontein, it now sits in a purpose-built complex on Constitution Hill, Johannesburg, Constitution Hill. The first court session in the new complex was held in February 2004. Originally the final appellate court for constitutional matters, since the enactment of the Seventeenth Amendment of the Constitution of South Africa, Seventeenth Amendment of the Constitution in 2013, the Constitutional Court has jurisdiction to hear ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
