The ANC Women’s League wants the law to be tightened for sexual offenders not to be granted bail.
According to the league, sexual offences should be treated as schedule five or six offences where the onus is on the accused person to prove beyond reasonable doubt that they should be granted bail.
The league made submissions yesterday before the portfolio committee on justice and correctional services on the amendment bills aimed at curbing the scourge of violence against women and children. The league highlighted bail and the definition of vulnerable persons among aspects they took issue with in the law.
“[The] community at large has little faith in the justice system and hold the view that the justice system as a whole is ineffective. We feel that the Criminal Procedure Act must be amended to place all gender-based violence offences under schedule six. This will assist in making sure that it is difficult for the accused persons to be released on bail,” the league’s Tholi Ngwenya said.
The ANCWL also said the national register for sexual offenders cannot work in its current form as it puts the responsibility solely on the offender to disclose whether they have been previously convicted of sexual offences.
When it was implemented in 2009, the sexual offenders registry was narrowed to those who had been convicted of sexual offences against children and mentally disabled persons.
The bills before parliament are looking at expanding the definition of vulnerable persons to include women and the elderly. Once amended, more people would be added to the sexual offenders registry, which will be available for companies to verify whether an employee or potential employee is listed.
“Another problematic aspect of the current sexual register is that it places the state’s obligations to protect vulnerable individuals solely on the employer and strangely on the goodwill of the offender through duties to report their own conviction,” Ngwenya said. “This, on its own, is problematic and forces the idea that the justice system is one that is perpetrator-biased and doesn’t look into what the victim could be going through.”
Criminal law expert Dr Llewellyn Curlewis said that sexual offences are treated as serious in courts and that new legislation in this regard will not change much.
“What we need is not new legislation, we need competent persons and competent police investigating officers that do their work properly so that we can have more and a better success ratio as far as convictions are concerned,” Curlewis said.
“Because the prosecutors and the NPA [National Prosecuting Authority] can convict if they are in possession of appropriate investigations dockets and that’s where the problem lies, not by introducing new legislation.”
He said he does not foresee any impediment to officially making sexual offences either schedule five or six offences.
Curlewis warned that a person should be placed on the register for sexual offenders after a conviction, not an allegation, as a person has a constitutional right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty.
The ANCWL said the register had a narrow focus in dealing with employer-employee relations as it overlooks those who may be outside the traditional forms of employment such as voluntary work at NGOs.
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