Long road to redress for past state injustices

Victims of state violence won important victories last week in SA and in Kenya. In SA, the family of student leader Caiphus Nyoka, murdered by apartheid secret police in 1987, said they felt some closure after a court sentenced one of the police involved to 15 years in prison. The case is a rare example of where apartheid era crimes, committed by those who refused to apply for amnesty, have resulted in justice for the victims and their families. And in Kenya, a former member of the air force was successful in his claim against the state for compensation following his detention and torture in 1982, under a previous government, and a previous Constitution. In her A Matter of Justice column on the Legalbrief site, Carmel Rickard looks at the two cases.