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Justice for victims or a paycheck to get out of trouble?

R100 000 for a discount on a rape sentence.

This was the price two men were ordered to pay in two different cases in the Pretoria High Court in the last week.

Though some laud the courts seemingly turning to restorative justice, others believe rapists should not be allowed to buy their way out.

Sentencing former doubles tennis champion Bob Hewitt, 75, this week for raping two of his teen tennis students more than 30 years ago, Judge Bert Bam suspended a part of Hewitt's total prison sentence on condition that he pays R100 000 to be used for campaigns against the abuse of women and children.

Last week, Judge Moses Mavundla set aside the seven-year prison term of Aboo Baker Seedat, 63, for raping a woman and instead ordered him to pay the woman a total of R100 000 over three years.

This after the woman had asked the magistrate's court not to send Seedat to jail but instead order him to buy her a car and pay her R245 000. Seedat had agreed.

Mavundla said the circumstances of the case called for a restorative approach when the woman's wishes and Seedat's age and ill health were taken into account, though he found the suggested amount "rather excessive".

He said harsher punishments had little success in preventing crime and did not consider the needs of the victims, help offenders take responsibility on an individual level or nurture a culture that valued personal morality.

Presenting the budget of the Department of Justice and Correctional Services to Parliament this week, Justice Minister Michael Masutha said that the increased use of restorative justice was part of his plan to increase public confidence in the criminal justice system.

“It is crucial that the victim becomes the centre of our efforts as government to improve the confidence in the criminal justice system,” Masutha said.

Mike Batley, director of the Restorative Justice Centre, said restorative justice, a theory that emphasises repairing harm caused by crime, needed to be integrated more into the criminal justice system.

Batley said in the case of sexual violence, a process that allows a victim to reclaim some sense of dignity, voice and agency can be profound.

But Women and Men against Child Abuse advocacy manager Germaine Vogel said a punitive approach is the only way to deal with a deep-seated problem like rape.

“Time in prison is the only way to send out the message to rapists … no matter how old, sick, rich, poor, famous [they are] or how long ago it happened,” Vogel said.

“We believe allowing financial transactions in the name of restorative justice in rape cases will not only minimise the seriousness of sexual crimes but will mean that only offenders who have the money to negotiate their way out of prison will be in a position to do so.”

Batley said it must be remembered that the basic terms of the sentence in the Seedat case were agreed to by Seedat and the woman.

Professor of procedural law at the University of Pretoria Annette van der Merwe said it was important to introduce a compensation scheme for crime victims in South Africa other than the available option of costly and time-consuming civil claims.

She said there must be proper guidelines for restorative justice, noting that the Seedat case did not have all components of a true restorative approach.

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