South Africa abolishes death penalty

Jet, June 26, 1995

South Africa recently ended 350 years of capital punishment by abolishing its death penalty.

The country's 11-member Constitutional Court decided to abolish the death penalty after determining it was no more of a deterrent than life imprisonment.

The 443 inmates sentenced to hang at Pretoria Central Prison were ecstatic with the new ruling.

Announcing the unanimous decision, Arthur Chaskalson, president of the high court, said: "Everyone, including the most abominable of human beings, has a right to life, and capital punishment is therefore unconstitutional."

South Africa stopped executing prisoners in 1992 on the orders of the former National Party Government. Over 1,100 people were executed in the 1980s.

The African National Congress, the leading force in the fight against apartheid, called the ruling a victory for the country's new democracy.

President Nelson Mandela, who narrowly escaped death in 1963 when he was imprisoned for trying to overthrow the government, called the decision humane.