SA gets tougher on rapists

2007-09-20 21:11

Cape Town - Parliamentarians on Thursday approved a bill making it harder for rapists to argue for reduced sentences.

The Criminal Law Sentencing Amendment Bill bars judges and magistrates from considering a rape victim's sexual history or an apparent lack of physical injury to justify lessening prescribed minimum jail terms.

They are also no longer allowed to take into consideration a convicted rapist's personal or cultural beliefs about rape, or any relationship between the rapist and his victim.

South African courts have come under fire for a broad reading of circumstances that justify the imposition of a sentence less than the prescribed minimum in rape cases.

The latest crime statistics revealed that 52 617 rapes were reported in South Africa in the year ended March.

About half of rape victims in the country, in which an estimated 5.5 million of the 48 million-population are infected with the HI virus that causes Aids, are believed to be children.

Life sentences, minimum sentences

The law currently prescribes a minimum life sentence for cases in which a victim was raped more than once, for gang rape, for repeat perpetrators and for rapists who knew they were HIV-positive.

Minimum sentences of between 10 and 25 years are prescribed for other rape cases, depending on whether this was the perpetrator's first, second or subsequent such offence.

The judge presiding over the 2006 rape trial of former deputy president Jacob Zuma allowed the plaintiff's sexual history onto the record as evidence.

Zuma was acquitted of raping the woman, an HIV-positive family friend more than 30 years his junior.

"I would have actually preferred not to prescribe (to judges)," Deputy Justice Minister Johnny de Lange said during debate on the bill. He referred to judges finding, for example, that a man raping his step-daughter posed no threat outside of the family.

The legislation is to be sent to Parliament's second house, the National Council of Provinces, for concurrence before being signed into law by the president.

- AFP