UWCScholar :: Browsing by Author "Julia, Sloth-Nielsen"

Browsing by Author "Julia, Sloth-Nielsen"

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The death penalty in the Cape Provincial Division: 1986-1988
(South African Journal on Human Rights, 1989) Julia, Sloth-Nielsen; Christina, Murray
This article presents the data that we collected in four tables. These are explained in the first section below. The second part of the article examines three issues that emerge from the data. First, we note the disparity in the use of the death penalty by individual judges and argue that, in part at least, this must be attributed to the personal disposition of judges. Then we examine the figures relating to appeal procedures and conclude that the procedure should be reformed. Thirdly we comment on the reprieve process. The last section of the article suggests areas in which future research on the death penalty may fruitfully be conducted.
The Juvenile Justice Law Reform Process in South Africa: Can children's rights approach carry the day?
(Quarterly Law Review, 1999) Julia, Sloth-Nielsen
The impetus for juvenile justice law reform sprang originally from concern for the plight of child detainees in the dark days of apartheid in the 1980s. Children, who were at the forefront of the struggle for democratic rule and against apartheid, were liable to be detained without trial as punishment for their political activism. Many hundreds of children were detained without trial under the infamous security legislation of the time.' However, in the early 1990s, the political climate changed: detention without trial for political activity abated; a moratorium was placed on the execution of the death penalty; Nelson Mandela was released from prison; and negotiations for the transition to democracy began to get underway. Because the focus during the struggle had been to achieve basic human rights and the franchise for all South Africans, it was only after this period that attention turned from children as political detainees to securing procedural rights for children caught up in the conventional criminal justice system.
Juvenile justice review 1994-1995
(South African Journal of Criminal Justice, 1995) Julia, Sloth-Nielsen
This review of the state of juvenile justice in South Africa introduces a new section to this journal in which annual developments relating to law and policy in the field of juvenile justice will be examined. Juvenile justice has long been a Cinderella topic in the South African legal and academic arena. Legislation relating to juvenile justice is spread out in various sections in the Criminal Procedure Act 1977, the Child Care Act, and the Correctional Services Act. No textbook for those practitioners concerned with juvenile justice has yet been published, and journal articles on aspects relating to juveniles in trouble with the law are sporadic. However, juvenile justice issues have for some years been the focus of media attention. Activists have drawn attention to the plight of children detained in prisons and police cells in particular. At an international seminar hosted by the Community Law Centre in 1993, the matter of comprehensive and radical legislative reform was mooted (see Report of the International Seminar on 'Children in Trouble with the Law', Community Law Centre, 1995). An outcome of the conference was the establishment of a drafting team, which set to work to produce innovative proposals for a new juvenile justice system. Published in November 1994 by the Drafting Consultancy as 'Juvenile Justice for South Africa: Proposals for Policy and Legislative Change' (discussed in D Pinnock, A Skelton, R Shapiro (1994) 3 SACJ 338-347), the document has inspired much of the current debate about legislative and policy reform for juveniles who come into conflict with the law.
Juvenile justice review 1996
(South African Journal of Criminal Justice, 1996) Julia, Sloth-Nielsen
This review follows the 1995 review, the first in this journal, and similarly reviews the period until 30 September 1996. In the year presently under review the principle focus of juvenile justice concern was yet again the matter of pre-trial detention of arrested juveniles. The question as to where juveniles should be held pending finalization of criminal trials was the subject-matter of legislative reform in May 1996, when the Correctional Services Amendment Act 14 of 1996 was promulgated with immediate effect. The genesis and intended purport of this amendment is described in J Sloth Nielsen 'Pre-trial detention of children revisited: amending section 29 of the Correctional Services Act' (1996) 9 SACJ60. The content of the legislation allowing selected children to be incarcerated pending criminal trial will therefore not be raised again, but new practical and textual problems that have arisen with the implementation of the new section since May 1996 will be discussed.
Juvenile justice review 1997
(South African Journal of Criminal Justice, 1998) Julia, Sloth-Nielsen
The 1997 juvenile justice review charts developments in juvenile justice law in South Africa from November 1996 until October 1997. The most significant development during 1997 was the release of the issue paper on Juvenile Justice by the South African Law Commission (Issue paper No 9, Project 106). It is expected that a discussion paper on the same topic, including comparative material and draft legislation, will be circulated for comment during 1998. Thereafter, the report of the Law Commission will be presented to the Minister of Justice, and it is expected that legislation will then be adopted.
Juvenile justice review 1998
(South African Journal of Criminal Justice, 1999) Julia, Sloth-Nielsen; Lukas, Muntingh
The 1998 Juvenile Justice Review charts developments in juvenile justice law and practice in South Africa from October 1997 until October 1998. However, the release of the South African Law Commission discussion paper on juvenile justice (Project 106) on 14 December 1998 paves the way for an introduction to the contents of the discussion paper, and more especially an overview of the proposed new child justice system, as reflected in the draft bill attached to the discussion paper. The draft bill will be extensively debated with relevant departments, members of the profession, academics and other interested parties during 1999, with a view to producing a final report to the Minister of Justice during the latter half of 1999.
Juvenile justice review 1999-2000
(South African Journal of Criminal Justice, 2001) Lukas, Muntingh; Julia, Sloth-Nielsen
The two years covered in this review have seen major developments in the juvenile justice sphere. Not only have several important judicial decisions been handed down, but the process of law reform has advanced significantly with the completion of the South African Law Commission's Report on Juvenile Justice which was presented to the Minister of Justice in August 2000. Draft legislation (entitled the Child Justice Bill) to establish a separate procedural system for children in conflict with the law is proposed in that document, and its contents are destined to be debated in Parliament in the second half of 2001.
Policy and practice in South African prisons: an update
(Law, Democracy & Development, 2005) Julia, Sloth-Nielsen
In June 2003, the Civil Society Prison Reform Initiative (CSPRI) released a policy review concerning major developments in penal policy in South Africa since the advent of constitutionalism in 1994. This paper was widely disseminated and drew quite heated reaction from some quarters at the time. By and large the policies discussed pertained to previous corrections administrations and the fact that the new commissioner had been appointed in August 2001. This article gives an overview of the issues to which attention had been drawn in the earlier policy review and provides an update to some key changes that occurred subsequently.
Safeguarding Children in the Developing World—Beyond Intra-Organisational Policy and Self-Regulation
(MDPI, 2020) Julia, Sloth-Nielsen; Afrooz Kaviani, Johnson
Safeguarding in the context of development and humanitarian assistance has received heightened international attention since 2018. Emerging literature has not yet investigated the extent to which responses are evolving in the best interests of the child, in line with the treaty-based rights of children. This article makes a unique contribution to scholarship by applying a child rights lens to safeguarding efforts in the aid sector with a focus on the least developed countries in Africa. The article first reviews the safeguarding landscape—providing a snapshot of self-regulatory and standard setting initiatives by non-government organisations (NGOs) and bilateral government donors. Next, the article examines the relevant standards in the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child and respective Committee observations to enrich the safeguarding discussion. Finally, the article discusses key dilemmas and remaining challenges for safeguarding children in the developing world. The article suggests that a rights-based approach provides for a more nuanced and contextualised response, avoiding the temptation of ‘tick-box’ exercises driven by reputational management and ‘programming siloes’ imposed by humanitarian and development actors. To support sustained and consistent progress, efforts should go beyond intra-organisational policy and sectoral self-regulation. Child rights law monitoring mechanisms can be leveraged to encourage effective government oversight of NGOs in contact with children, as part of national frameworks for child protection. Donor governments should also consider and increase investment in national and local child protection systems to address risk factors to child abuse and ensure appropriate responses for any child that experiences harm.
SDG 16 and the Impact of the CCR on Pre-trial Detention of Children in South Africa
(Speculum Juris, 2020) Julia, Sloth-Nielsen; Sheena, Mutsvara
The danger to children of “criminal contamination” while in detention pending trial cannot be underestimated.1 Unfortunately, a large number of children are reported to be in pre-trial detention yearly. Sustainable Development Goal 16 (Goal 16), through indicator 16.3.2 seeks to reduce the number of unsentenced detained persons (including children). The essence of this indicator is that awaiting trial persons (for various reasons) should not be detained in custody unnecessarily. For children, such pre-trial detention can lead to devastating consequences such as loss of school time, mental and emotional breakdown and exposure to various forms of abuse. Having in mind the various negative consequences caused by detention, Article 37(b) of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) prohibits unlawful and arbitrary arrest, detention or imprisonment of children and if lawfully used, it is only to be a measure of last resort and for the shortest period. The requirement in Article 37(b) that any detention of children be only as a measure of last resort and for the very shortest period of time can be used as an instrument to achieve the objective of Goal 16, indicator 16.3.2. In light of indicator 16.3.2, this article will thus discuss the impact of this CRC provision in reducing the number of unsentenced detained children in South Africa, thus contributing towards the achievement of this goal. The article will give a statistical analysis of the progress made by South Africa in reducing the number of unsentenced children detained in secure care and correctional facilities as a result of applying the CRC provisions.
'A short history of time' charting the contribution of social development service delivery to enhance child justice 1996-2006
(Journal of Social Work, 2007) Julia, Sloth-Nielsen
The starting point of this article has been selected as 1996 for several reasons. That year was characterised by three signal events in the history of child justice in South Africa. First, 1996 heralded the adoption of the Correctional Services Amendment Act 14 of 1996, now infamous as having re-paved the way for the incarceration of children aged below 18 in prisons whilst awaiting trial. This was a step taken to address the (by then) well-known difficulties caused at a practical level by the previous amending legislation of a year earlier (Skelton, 2005:396-403), which sought to prohibit altogether the detention of children in prison after an initial 48-hour period prior to appearance in court.
Sideswipes and Backhanders: Abolition of the Reasonable Chastisement Defence in South Africa
(International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family, 2020) Julia, Sloth-Nielsen
This article reviews the abolition of the defence of reasonable chastisement by the South African Constitutional Court on the grounds that it infringes the Constitution. After detailing the history of the abolition of corporal punishment in a democracy with the Constitution as supreme law, the article dissects the reasoning of the Constitutional Court. It argues that judgment in Freedom of Religion South Africa v Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development (hereafter FORSA), whilst overall positive in its result, is probably a low water mark in the development of children’s rights jurisprudence in South Africa. There are a number of inadequacies and strangely deferential statements in the FORSA decision. Whilst inescapably coming to the constitutionally correct decision, the reluctance of the Court to reach this point, and its desire to accommodate the religious and cultural beliefs of the appellants, is evident. The way forward has, as a result, been left rather obscure.
Unaccompanied and Separated Foreign Children in the Care System in the Western Cape – A Socio-Legal Study
(Potchefstroom Electronic Law Journal, 2016) Julia, Sloth-Nielsen; Marilize, Ackerman
This article reports on the findings of a study of foreign children accommodated in the care system in the Western Cape, based on fieldwork conducted in child and youth care centres. The objectives of the study were firstly to map and quantify the number and demographics of foreign children placed in all CYCCs across the Western Cape. Secondly, the study aimed to analyse the reasons for children's migration and the circumstances around their placement in residential care institutions in order to establish whether family reunification was possible or desirable. Thirdly, the study explores the sufficiency of efforts made to trace and reunify the children with their families, whether in South Africa or across borders, as the institutional placement of children should not only be a last resort but it should preferably be temporary whilst family-based solutions are sought. Lastly, the documentation status of the children in the study was examined. Recommendations emanating from the research conclude the study.

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