SOUTH AFRICA. STATE FAILS TO SET ASIDE DEATH ROW SENTENCES

South African constitutional Court judges expressed their disappointment at the government's failure to present a report on what it had done to set aside sentences of 59 prisoners still on death row.
The move followed the government's failure to respect a May court order that it should report by August 15 on what steps it had taken to convert all death sentences. The requested report was to set out in full why the remaining death sentences had not been set aside and the steps that had been be taken to ensure this happened.
The state on August 17 applied for, and was granted, an extension until September 15 to supply the court with the report.
"This is unacceptable. Had they properly applied their minds, they could have taken steps to comply with the order timeously," Judge Sandile Ngcobo told state advocate Vas Soni.
Judge Dikgang Moseneke asked if the extension the state had requested was enough, given the delay so far in resolving the status of death-row prisoners. "We are dealing with people who are sitting on death row 11 years after Mokonyane (the 1995 Constitutional Court judgment abolishing the death penalty as a form of punishment)," Moseneke said. Adv Frank Snyckers, for three death row prisoners who brought the application, said the problem facing prisoners on death row was that they were not classified with those serving life and did not get credits to qualify for parole.