Criminal transmission of HIV is the intentional or reckless infection of a person with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). This is often conflated, in laws and in discussion, with criminal exposure to HIV, which does not require the transmission of the virus and often, as in the cases of spitting and biting, does not include a realistic means of transmission. Some countries or jurisdictions, including some areas of the U.S., have enacted laws expressly to criminalize HIV transmission or exposure, charging those accused with criminal transmission of HIV. Other countries charge the accused under existing laws with such crimes as murder, manslaughter, attempted murder, assault or fraud.
The Constitutional Court of South Africa is the supreme constitutional court established by the Constitution of South Africa, and is the apex court in the South African judicial system, with general jurisdiction.
LourensWepener Hugo "Laurie" Ackermann was a South African judge who served on the Constitutional Court of South Africa from 1994 to 2004. Appointed to the inaugural court by Nelson Mandela, he is best known for his jurisprudence on dignity. He was formerly an academic, a practising advocate, and a judge of the Supreme Court of South Africa.
Simon Tseko Nkoli was an anti-apartheid, gay rights and AIDS activist in South Africa. Active in the Congress of South African Students (COSAS), the United Democratic Front, and the Gay Association of South Africa (GASA), he was arrested as part of the Delmas Treason Trial in 1984. After his release in 1988, he founded the Gay and Lesbian Organisation of the Witwatersrand (GLOW) and organized South Africa's first pride parade. His activism influenced the African National Congress (ANC) to enshrine gay rights in the South African constitution. One of the first South Africans to disclose that he was living with HIV/AIDS, Nkoli founded the Township AIDS Project. After his death from AIDS-related complications, his colleagues established the Treatment Action Campaign.
National Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Equality and Another v Minister of Justice and Others is a decision of the Constitutional Court of South Africa which struck down the laws prohibiting consensual sexual activities between men. Basing its decision on the Bill of Rights in the Constitution – and in particular its explicit prohibition of discrimination based on sexual orientation – the court unanimously ruled that the crime of sodomy, as well as various other related provisions of the criminal law, were unconstitutional and therefore invalid.
Tholakele Hope "Tholie" Madala was a judge of the Constitutional Court of South Africa between October 1994 and October 2008. He was appointed to the court by Nelson Mandela upon the court's inception. Before that, he practised as a human rights lawyer in the Transkei, taking silk in 1993, and served briefly in the Mthatha Supreme Court in 1994. He retired from the bench in 2008.
Baaitse Elizabeth "Bess" Nkabinde-Mmono is a South African retired judge who served in the Constitutional Court of South Africa from January 2006 to December 2017. During that time, she was acting Deputy Chief Justice of South Africa from 23 May 2016 to 7 June 2017. She joined the bench in November 1999 as a judge of the Bophuthatswana Provincial Division.
Catherine "Kate" O'Regan is a former judge of the Constitutional Court of South Africa. From 2013 to 2014 she was a commissioner of the Khayelitsha Commission and is now the inaugural director of the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights at the University of Oxford.
Johann Vincent van der Westhuizen is a South African who served on the Constitutional Court of South Africa from February 2004 to January 2016. He was a professor of law at the University of Pretoria from 1980 to 1999, when he joined the bench as a judge of the High Court of South Africa.
Dikgang Ernest Moseneke OLG is a South African jurist and former Deputy Chief Justice of South Africa.
The Judicial Service Commission is a body specially constituted by the South African Constitution to recommend persons for appointment to the judiciary of South Africa.
Mogoeng Thomas Reetsang Mogoeng is a South African jurist who served as the Chief Justice of South Africa from 8 September 2011 until his retirement on 11 October 2021.
Section 20A of the Immorality Act, 1957, commonly known as the "men at a party" clause, was a South African law that criminalised all sexual acts between men that occurred in the presence of a third person. The section was enacted by the Immorality Amendment Act, 1969 and remained in force until it was found to be unconstitutional in 1998 by the Constitutional Court in the case of National Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Equality v Minister of Justice.
This is a timeline of notable events in the history of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in South Africa.
Christopher Nyaole Jafta is a retired South African judge who served in the Constitutional Court of South Africa from October 2009 to October 2021. Formerly an academic and practising advocate in the Transkei, he joined the bench in November 1999 as a judge of the Transkei Division. Thereafter he served in the Supreme Court of Appeal from November 2004 to October 2009.
Sisi Virginia Khampepe is a retired South African judge who served in the Constitutional Court of South Africa between October 2009 and October 2021. Formerly a prominent labour lawyer, she joined the bench in December 2000 as a judge of the Transvaal Provincial Division. She was also a member of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
The criminal transmission of HIV in the United States varies among jurisdictions. More than thirty of the fifty U.S. states have prosecuted HIV-positive individuals for exposing another person to HIV. State laws criminalize different behaviors and assign different penalties. While pinpointing who infected whom is scientifically impossible, a person diagnosed with HIV who is accused of infecting another while engaging in sexual intercourse is, in many jurisdictions, automatically committing a crime. A person donating HIV-infected organs, tissues, and blood can be prosecuted for transmitting the virus. Spitting or transmitting HIV-infected bodily fluids is a criminal offense in some states, particularly if the target is a prison guard. Some states treat the transmission of HIV, depending upon a variety of factors, as a felony and others as a misdemeanor.
Mbuyiseli Russel Madlanga is a judge of the Constitutional Court of South Africa. He joined the bench on 1 August 2013 on the appointment of President Jacob Zuma. Formerly an advocate in the Eastern Cape, he first served as a judge in the Transkei Division between 1996 and 2001.
The South African judiciary has broad powers of judicial review under the Constitution of South Africa. Courts are empowered to pronounce on the legality and constitutionality of exercises of public power, including administrative action, executive action, and the passage of acts of Parliament. Though informed by the common law principles that guided judicial review during the apartheid era, contemporary judicial review is authorised by and grounded in constitutional principles. In the case of administrative action, it is also codified in the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act, 2000.
Albutt v Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation and Others is a 2010 decision of the Constitutional Court of South Africa which concerned a special presidential dispensation to pardon the perpetrators of politically motivated crimes committed during the apartheid era. The Constitutional Court held that the President of South Africa had contravened the Constitution in deciding not to consult the victims of those crimes before granting the pardons. The unanimous judgment was written by Chief Justice Sandile Ngcobo and delivered on 23 February 2010.
