Minimum Sentences Act has not achieved its aim
In an analysis of the success of the Minimum Sentences Act in deterring crime, Piet van Niekerk writes in The Herald that it is clear that the purposes of the Act were not met because there is no proof that serious crimes have started to drop.
Several High Court criminal cases in the Eastern Cape have focused attention on the controversial Section 51 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 105 of 1997 commonly known as the Minimum Sentences Act. In one case, Port Elizabeth lawyer David Price was sentenced to a minimum sentence of 15 years imprisonment for cheque fraud involving R1.9m. Every possible appeal Price has brought has been unsuccessful. His sentence is more than double what he would have received before 1997. According to Professor Stephan Terblanche, of the Department of Criminal and Procedural Law at the University of SA, concerns about the high crime rate were the main reason for Parliament becoming involved in the sentencing process in courts. But, argues Terblanche, the Minimum Sentence Act added a substantial number of problems to the sentencing system, particularly overcrowding of prisons and that the current sentencing system is not in a better position than it was in a pre-democratic SA. Full column in The Herald