Entries tagged with “South Africa”
Sep 12, 2025
30 Years Ago, South Africa Abolished the Death Penalty to Prioritize Life and Dignity
30 years ago, the newly formed Constitutional Court of South Africa issued a landmark decision abolishing the death penalty and prioritizing the core constitutional rights to life and dignity above all else. Published on June 6, 1995, the Court’s opinion in S v. Makwanyane drew on international legal frameworks, as well as death penalty debates in other countries, such as the United States. The Court weighed inherent issues in the application of the death penalty, such as inequality, cruelty…
Issues
Religion
,Jan 03, 2022
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Laureate ‘Passionately Opposed to the Death Penalty,’ Has Died
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a Nobel Peace laureate who described himself as “passionately opposed to the death penalty,” died in Cape Town, South Africa on December 26, 2021. He was 90 years old. Tutu, who as Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town helped turn the conscience of the world against the white supremacist policies of apartheid that oppressed his homeland, later was tasked by President Nelson Mandela with chairing the nation’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission. While unrelenting in his…