Issued by: Office of the President
PRESS STATEMENT IN RESPONSE TO HEADLINE ARTICLE IN THE CAPE TIMES OF 3 JULY 1996
The President's Office has noted with some concern the report in the Cape Times concerning the remission of sentences granted by the President on the occasion of the commemoration of Freedom Day on 27 April 1995. The remission needs to be placed in context. The remission was, in effect, a further remission of sentence to all prisoners granted upon the introduction of the new democratic order. It followed upon recommendations for a more extensive remission of sentences of all convicted prisoners by Judge Kriegler in his report to the President in 1995. Judge Kriegler had suggested that the remission offered by the President in 1994 had been parsimonious and recommended to the President that he be more generous in according a further remission to all prisoners. He had suggested a 3 year remission of sentence. The President departed from Judge Kriegler's recommendation by deciding only to offer a six month's remission of sentence and, secondly by deciding to exclude those who were guilty of child abuse.
When the Department of Correctional Services was asked to prepare and approve the appropriate Presidential authorisation for submission to the President, they pointed out that there is no specific offence of 'child abuse'. There are only the two statutory offences expressly dealing with the sexual abuse of minors and in respect of which the remission should not and, indeed, did not apply. The Department of Correctional Services pointed out that, for administrative reasons, they would be unable to determine who would be excluded from the remission if the remission were to apply to common law criminals. The ages of the victims of common law offences is not information which is available to the Department and, nor is such information necessarily still on record at all. Accordingly the remission itself would not be capable of implementation. The Department of Correctional Services prepared the Presidential Act on the basis that the exclusion from the remission should refer directly to the specific offences of child abuse as defined in the legislation referred to above. It is for this reason that the remission was duly authorised in the more restricted form that it was.
This remission granted by the President in his amnesty was put into effect over a year ago. At the time there was public debate on the consequences of the release of common law offenders whose victims may have been minors. The matter was debated in a talk show in the Western Cape and the factors set out above were made public. It is with some concern that the President's Office notes that the report in today's newspaper purports to raise this matter as if it is a new matter.
Issued by the Office of the President 3 July 1996