S v Makwanyane

S v Makwanyane and Another is a landmark 1995 judgment of the Constitutional Court of South Africa, delivered on 6 June, holding that capital punishment was inconsistent with the human rights guarantees of the Interim Constitution. The ruling struck down the provision of the Criminal Procedure Act that had authorized the death penalty and any equivalent provision elsewhere in South African law, and barred the government from carrying out death sentences on prisoners already awaiting execution, who instead had new sentences imposed. It is regarded as the newly established court's first politically significant and publicly controversial decision.