In what could be a landmark judgement for South African women, the appeal of Anita Ferreira, the woman who received a life sentence four years ago for killing her abusive common-law husband, will be heard in the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein this Friday, March 12.
The outcome could reshape this country’s jurisprudence on sentencing in cases of domestic violence.
In January 2001 Ferreira and the two men who she hired to kill her husband, Cyril Parkman, were sentenced to life imprisonment after they were found guilty of murdering Parkman in 1999.
The judgement, which was heard in the Transvaal Provincial Division of the High Court, found that there were no ”substantial and compelling circumstances” that justified a lighter sentence in terms of the Criminal Law Amendment Act, which prescribes a mandatory minimum sentence in such cases.
The judge ruled that ”the employment of two hired assassins who performed their dastardly act for money [made] it a heinous offence which has from early times filled people with horror”.
At the time, women’s groups said that Ferreira’s socio-economic reality was overlooked in this judgement. Now it will come under scrutiny as Ferreira’s attorney, Hayley Galgut from the Women’s Legal Centre, prepares for this ground-breaking court battle.
”In the determination of the appropriate sentence, the first fundamental question is whether Ms Ferreira is an offender who has to be removed from society by imprisonment or one who deserves to be punished but does not have to removed from society … We submit that there are clear substantial and compelling circumstances that justify a sentence less than imprisonment for life in this case,” the Women’s Legal Centre’s submission on behalf of Ferreira says.
According to the submission, the events that led to Parkman’s death began when Ferreira met him in 1991. He first physically assaulted her when he discovered that she was having telephone contact with her four children from a previous marriage. From then on the abuse escalated, and was exacerbated by the fact that he ”drank excessively”.
He physically, emotionally and physiologically abused her, the submission says. He also isolated her from the outside world and kept her financially dependent so that he could exercise total control.
Ferreira made several attempts to leave Parkman. She found a job, but her husband locked her in the house to prevent her from going to work. She called the police three times, but they only responded once and blamed the abuse on drunkenness.
She left him four times, but ”he was always able to find her within a period of a few days to two weeks. He would beg her to return … due to [his] manipulation, she was always forced to return,” says a submission to the appeal court by the Centre for Applied Legal Studies (Cals) at Wits University, which is amicus curiae in the case.
”Consistent with the theories in respect of the response of battered women to abusive partners, Ms Ferreira kept returning in the hope that [Parkman] would in fact change,” says the Cals submission.
The psychological and physical abuse reached new heights when Parkman threatened to gang rape her. Two weeks later the murder was planned, and then committed by two men introduced to Ferreira by her domestic worker.
According to research by the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation cited in the appeal submission, ”Ms Ferreira’s act was a final desperate act of self-preservation aimed at protecting what physical and psychological integrity she had left. In her mind she had no other hope of escaping.”
On this basis, Galgut will ask the appeal court to overturn her life sentence in favour of imposing a ”term of imprisonment that is either wholly suspended or suspended insofar as it exceeds the period that she has already spent in prison at the time of the judgement”.
The state — the respondent in this case — admits in its submission to the appeal court that the court erred in interpretation of the meaning of ”wesenlike en dwingende omstandighede [substantial and compelling circumstances]” and that ”wesenlik mistasting gevolglik begaan is [a wrong interpretation of the law took place]” when Ferreira’s life sentence was awarded. However, while the state admits that this sentence can be reconsidered it will argue that a life sentence is appropriate to avoid setting precedents that victims of ”gesinsgeweld [family abuse]” can get away with a lighter sentence.
The state submits that suspending Ferreira’s sentence will emphasise ”die persoonlike omstandighede van die appellant tot so ’n mate dat dit die oorwegings van gemeenskapsbelang en die erns van die misdryf effetiewlik negeer [the personal circumstance of (Ferreira) to the extent that that the interests of the community and the seriousness of the crime will be undermined]”.