Law, War and the TRC | The Kaunda Case

A planeload of South African mercenaries on their way to kill the President of Equatorial Guinea were arrested in Zimbabwe where the plane had stopped for fuel. Members of their families approached the Constitutional Court to protect their rights under the Bill of Rights in the South African Constitution. In an emergency hearing, the Court held that South Africa's Bill of Rights did not extend to countries beyond South Africa's borders. Nevertheless, the South African government owed a duty to do what it could to protect South African citizens in captivity abroad against being subject to torture or to capital punishment. At the hearing, Justice Sachs observed that people who went into a lions' den shouldn't be surprised if they discovered that a lion was there. In a separate judgment, however, he held that even if the objectives of the mercenaries violated every norm of South African and International law, they were entitled to be protected from torture and the death sentence.