The impact of children's rights on criminal justice

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.