Special Issue: Editorial

• Author: Roberts, J.V.
• Date: 06 July 2020
• Citation: (2020) 33 SACJ 1
• Published date: 06 July 2020
• Pages: 1-2

Sentencing practice, policy, and

reform in southern and eastern

Africa

Editorial

This special issue of the So uth African Journal of Criminal Justice

explores sentencing in a number of African jur isdictions. The essays

constitute a step towards lli ng a signicant gap in the international

sentencing literature. They are based upon presentat ions made to an

international semin ar held at the University of Oxford in June 2019.∗

The issue had its genesis some time ago, when the editors independently

grew increasingly frust rated at the dearth of scholar ship on sentencing

on the African continent. Jul ian Roberts’s interest in Africa comes from

having been born in Kenya and raised in Tanzani a, whereas Stephan

Terblanche considers himself African in m arrow and bone.

In 1967, Judge Hiemstra contrasted the attention given to the question

of guilt or innocence of the accused person w ith the determination of

sentence: no time, talent or resources are spared to adjudicate verdict,

whereas sentencing usually occupies only a few minutes of cour t time

(VC Hiemstra Suid-Afrikaanse Strafproses (1967) 407). Hiemstra’s

comments echoed and reafr med similar sentiments expressed

by many commentators. A notable example may be found in Nigel

Walker’s colourful phrase that, ‘[if] t he criminal law as a whole is the

Cinderella of jurisprudence, then the law of sentencing is Ci nderella’s

illegitimate baby’ (Walker Sentencing in a Rational Society (1969) 1).

The question is to what extent these sentiments rem ain true, half a

century later, in Africa.

Recent decades have witnessed a resurgence of interest in sentencing

around the world. This activity h as naturally attracted a signica nt

degree of scholarship. Regrettably, almost all of this work has focused

on the Western jurisdictions, par ticularly the United States and England

and Wales. (For recent scholarship on sentencing reform in Western

* The editors express t heir gratitude to the Univer sity of Oxford Africa In itiative,

the Faculty of Law, and the Cent re of Criminology for nanc ial support. We are

also very gratef ul to the authors for travelling to Oxford to shar e their work in this

sem inar.

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(2020) 33 SACJ 1

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