Juridical victimisation: a South African study

Law as a formal system of rules and regulations guides and directs people's behaviour, obligations and expectations as well as their daily activities and interactions. Law should reflect and accommodate the interests of society. What impact will the law have if it does not reflect the interests of society? South Africa has a history of systematic political oppression resulting from legislation that emanated from the apartheid era. This involved dictatorship, arbitrary exercising of power, oppressive and repressive conduct, etc. This legislation attracted various forms of criminalisation as well as the use of violence and aggressive behaviour to enforce compliance with and/or to overcome resistance of such legislation. Oppressing members of the community through legislation into conformist behaviour may result in arbitrary victimization of the perpetrators of such laws. This paper proposes an overview of pre-democratic statutory victimisation as well as a brief evaluation of legislation promulgated in the post-democratic South Africa with a view of answering questions related to victimisation.