SCA ruling: family may find closure

From the onset we said convicted killer Oscar Pistorius was not alone in his murder trial, as the credibility of SA’s justice system, which became the focal point of the world’s media, was also at stake. Many South Africans have lost faith in a dysfunctional court system characterised by lengthy delays in trials and bungled cases due to shoddy evidence. The Pistorius trial offered our courts an excellent opportunity to demonstrate to the world that despite the myriad challenges, they were still able to conduct fair trials and deliver proper sentencing to convicted criminals.

While the prosecution in the Pistorius case was done well, many people were disappointed at the culpable homicide conviction and the five-year jail sentence, of which he served less than a year in prison.

Yesterday’s Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) ruling, which overturned Pistorius’s culpable homicide conviction and upgraded it to murder, will go a long way to restoring citizens’ confidence in our courts. The court found the principles of dolus eventualis were incorrectly applied by high court Judge Thokozile Masipa who found Pistorius guilty of culpable homicide for killing his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp.

The SCA ruling will certainly help undo the damage done by Judge Masipa’s error and that inflicted by the case of British honeymoon murder-accused Shrien Dewani. His trial was a monumental failure that punched holes in the credibility of SA’s judicial system after extensive public funds were spent to get him extradited to SA. The prosecution’s evidence was so weak the court had to throw the case out.

The SCA finding revives the public’s hope that we still have a credible justice system that metes out appropriate punishment to those who have violated the law. Most importantly, the SCA finding will help the Steenkamps find closure and move on with their lives.