Human Settlements Minister Thembi Kubayi has rejected growing calls for South Africa to bring back the death penalty.
Kubayi said capital punishment has no place in a constitutional democracy and warned that restoring it would take the country backwards.
Kubayi Defends Constitutional Values
Speaking at the Gallows Lecture in Gqeberha, Kubayi described the death penalty as incompatible with the values of justice, equality and human dignity.
The event marked 30 years of South Africa’s Constitution and honoured anti-apartheid activists who were executed under the previous government.
“Those who call for the return of the death penalty must understand that they are asking for South Africa to return to barbarism,” Kubayi said.
She argued that South Africans who died fighting apartheid believed future generations would live under a fairer system in which the state did not use executions as punishment.
Death Penalty Ruled Unconstitutional
South Africa’s Constitutional Court abolished the death penalty in a landmark 1995 ruling.
Kubayi described the judgment as an important turning point that helped establish a legal system centred on constitutional rights and compassion.
She said the ruling ended a system that had taken lives while helping to build a democratic system designed to protect them.
Former Chief Justice Arthur Chaskalson found that capital punishment was cruel and incompatible with the principles of the new democracy.
Apartheid History Shapes Debate
Kubayi also highlighted how the apartheid government used capital punishment beyond ordinary criminal sentencing.
She said executions became a tool of racial oppression and were used to silence political opponents.
Evidence presented during the Truth and Reconciliation Commission reportedly showed that around 95% of people sentenced to death under apartheid were Black. Every judge who imposed those sentences was white.
More than 70 political prisoners were also reportedly still awaiting execution when Nelson Mandela was released from prison in 1990.
Calls for tougher punishment have continued as South Africans raise concerns about violent crime.
However, Kubayi maintained that even serious criminal offences must be handled through a justice system rooted in human dignity and the Constitution.
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