‘No chance’ of death penalty for GBV, insists Ramaphosa
President Cyril Ramaphosa says there’s no chance that the death penalty will be brought back to deal with perpetrators of gender-based violence.
This comes amid the rising incidents of violence against women across the country.
On Tuesday, the Department of Women revealed that more than 30 women have fallen victim to violent crimes in June alone.
But Ramaphosa says the death penalty remains unconstitutional.
“The Bill of Rights contains a very important basic right - which is the right to life. The right to life militated against the death penalty and that led to the death penalty being abolished, because that meant someone’s right to life could not be taken by the state.
“There is a rule of law in the country and we are bound by what we committed to as a people.”
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Young North West teacher strangled to death
Spokesperson for the provincial education department, Elias Malindi, says the young woman was allegedly strangled to death. "She was originally from Makgobistad Village near Mafikeng and was a Life Science teacher at Makoba Secondary School. "After completing an Education degree in 2018 at the North West University, Mafikeng Campus, she joined teaching at the beginning of 2019," Malindi said.
At the same time Ramaphosa says he stands by calls to end the scourge of gender-based violence but adds that the rule of law trumps calls for the death penalty.
“I know that the argument has been when horrendous crimes are committed against our people, especially women and children, to bring back the death penalty.
“But we are bound by our Constitution.”
Ramaphosa says the judiciary must instead hand down life sentences.
“Life sentence must mean life and that basically means you must serve a long-life sentence and you must never come out.”
Ramaphosa hosted a virtual imbizo on Wednesday with various communities on the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.