The murder of African Farmers’ Association of SA chairperson Mbongeni Sikhakhane in KZN last month, and the death of a motorist on the N17 in Gauteng recently, as a result of an incident involving a brick, depict a crime-ridden country. Violent crime continues unabated in South Africa and is a reminder that we live in a sick society. This culture of violence brings with it a class of individuals who believe that they are entitled to determine the value of other human lives.
We live in a society that does not recognise individual worth. We are grimly reminded that the absence of an ethic of sanctity results in the destruction of human life. There are a few important reasons as to why a civilised state governed by law should impose the severest judgment on those guilty of violent crimes and murder.
There are certain circumstances in which life imprisonment is essential to uphold our respect for life. If we do not, in our law, send the message to everyone that by coldly taking a human life they face life imprisonment, then we are sending a message of contempt for human life. In itself, life imprisonment is not something desired.
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But this punishment is forced by a sometimes brutal reality that the back door to paradise is closed. Harsh punishment should be viewed as one instrument among many in the fight for a more righteous and better world. It is important that we have the strength to put ourselves in the place of the victim since it is among us living that the victims of tomorrow live.
Our voice is the voice of the victims and this is the voice we should make known to society. A lost human life can only be fully compensated through the maximum penalty. As long as this does not happen there will, in a symbolic way, be a call for blood from the ground, with the message that the crime has not been atoned.
As long as the punishment is not proportional to the crime, justice remains weak. Today the state that is governed by law is far from achieving justice and atonement.
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