ConCourt rules on rape 'common purpose'

The Constitutional Court has handed down judgment that implicates how gang rapes will be treated in law. This comes after Jabulani Tshabalala and Annanias Ntuli challenged their conviction for rape under common purpose. The applicants were convicted of common law rape after a group of men broke into a number of houses, raped some of the occupants, as well as robbed them and caused malicious damage to property. The two believed that they shouldn’t have been found guilty of rape. They say they should only have been found to be guilty as accomplices as they didn’t actually commit the rape, but were part of a group that committed the crime.

To help us unpack the case further is Vuyolethu Mntonintshi, an attorney with the Centre for Applied Legal Studies