SA Women's body in favour of appeal against unjust Pistorius acquittal

The ANC Women's League has said that it would apply to be a friend of the court if an appeal in Paralympic runner Oscar Pistorius' case went ahead.

ANCWL spokesperson Jacqui Mofokeng said that they would register as a friend of the court, if the NPA appeals. Sentencing procedures in the case against Pistorius are currently underway in the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria.

Last month, Judge Thokozile Masipa found Pistorius not guilty of murder but convicted him of culpable homicide for shooting his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on Valentine's Day last year in his Pretoria home, Sport24 reported.

The double amputee runner has maintained throughout that he thought she was an intruder.

On Monday, ANCWL's president Angie Motshekga had a meeting with the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) to express her organization's desire for an appeal in the matter. She said that they are requesting the NPA to look at an appeal and are not even happy at the verdict.

Motshekga added that they never thought the judgment would go this way. She said that the NPA had requested that the ANCWL wait until the sentencing was over.

The ANCWL president said that, if, in a possible appeal, the ANCWL was granted the status of a friend of the court, it would collaborate with the Progressive Womens' Movement, and even possibly the ANC Youth League, to appoint a legal representative.

As a friend of the court, Mofokeng said that the ANCWL's unhappiness with the legal understanding of culpable homicide could be raised by its representative.

She added that the league believed that culpable homicide should be graded according to degrees of severity, as otherwise it covered such a broad range of actions, that they don't know where it stops.

In South African law, culpable homicide is considered to be the killing of a human being through negligence, as opposed to intention, and imprisonment is not mandatory but jail time of maximum 15 years can be stipulated in the sentence, the report added.