Abstract:
South Africa’s criminal justice system has traditionally provided
protection for the rights of three categories of persons, namely
perpetrators, victims and witnesses – both adults and children. In
recent years, however, there has been increasing jurisprudential
recognition of a fourth category of affected persons whose rights
and interests need to be independently protected. This category is
the children of perpetrators. There is an
emerging judicial trend towards considering children’s rights in all
instances where a court exercises a discretion that will ultimately
curtail the right to parental care. It is this trend that the subsequent
case descriptions seek to highlight.
