Abstract:
The judgment by Nugent JA (with whom Navsa and Heher JJA concurred) not
only restates and applies well-known principles regarding the quantification of
damages for wrongful arrest and detention, but also deals with the role of the
Constitution in this regard. The court correctly places emphasis on the principle
that the facts of each case are decisive in arriving at the appropriate amount of
damages and that a comparison of awards made in previous cases must take proper
account of this approach (see generally Visser and Potgieter Law of damages
(2003) 472–474; Neethling, Potgieter and Visser Neethling’s Law of personality
(2005) 121–122).
