Protecting the vulnerable? Assessing the constitutionality of the national register for sex offenders in respect of juvenile sex offenders - S v IJ 2013 2 SACR 599 (WCC) and J v National Director of Public Prosecutions 2014 ZACC 13

Abstract

Johnnie is a registered sex offender. When he was eleven he touched his four-year-old half-sister's vagina (over her underwear). A few months later, she performed oral sex on him at his request. Johnnie's mother found out. She called the police and Johnnie spent sixteen months in a residential juvenile sex offender program; where he successfully completed treatment. When he was released, Johnnie's mother wanted nothing to do with him, so he ended up living with his grandmother. Two months after he started a new middle school, someone found Johnnie on the state's internet sex offender registry. Two days later, Johnnie walked into oncoming traffic and told a police officer he wanted to die. He transferred to an alternative school for juvenile delinquents. Even there, the harassment continued. Some of the other boys confronted Johnnie on the school bus, calling him a sex offender and yelling: "You tried to rape your sister!" As a result of anger and depression, Johnnie has twice been admitted to psychiatric hospitals. Not only is Johnnie suicidal, but when he transferred to yet another school and the harassment continued, he told a counsellor that he wanted to kill another student for taunting him. Johnnie knows what he did to his sister was wrong and continues to feel guilty about it. Johnnie has never committed another sex offence. Nevertheless his name, photo, address, and school information continue to appear on the internet registry where they will likely remain for the rest of his life.