The women of the East Rand — condolence, duty, and the law that still has to sit still
This page begins where a court must always begin when women have been taken from us: in sorrow. Between mid-July and mid-September 2026 the bodies of several women were found in and around Kempton Park, Olifantsfontein, Clayville, KwaThema and elsewhere on the East Rand. Each of them had a name, a mother, a child, a friend, a Monday that will not come back. JASA offers its condolences, without qualification, to every family that has had to identify a daughter, a sister or a mother in a room that was never meant for that work. It is right that a nation should be shocked. It is right that a nation should be outraged. Gender-based violence and femicide were classified as a national disaster in November 2025. The National Council on GBVF took office in August 2026. Those instruments exist because too many South African women have already been buried. What happened on the East Rand this winter is not an abstract file. It is a wound in the same Republic whose flag we raise on Heritage Day.
Dignity does not end at death
Section 10 of the Constitution protects dignity. Section 11 protects life. Section 12 protects freedom and security of the person, including the right to be free from all forms of violence from either public or private sources. Section 7(2) requires the State to respect, protect, promote and fulfil those rights.1 Identification of the deceased is therefore not only an evidentiary step. It is a dignity question. Families are not exhibits. The names of the dead are not a public spectacle. In Carmichele v Minister of Safety and Security the Constitutional Court held that sexual violence is “the single greatest threat to the self-determination of South African women,” and that the police and prosecutors bear positive duties to take reasonable steps to protect women from foreseeable harm.2 In S v Baloyi the Court refused the idea that a society may sit passively in the face of abuse.3 In AK v Minister of Police the duty was restated: courts themselves must send a clear message that they are determined to protect the equality, dignity and freedom of women.4 None of that is cancelled by Heritage Day. It is what Heritage Day is for.
Not in our name. A Republic that will not make peace with the murder of women.
Kindness on the record is not softness
Public language reached at once for the phrase “serial killer.” One suspect arrested in connection with the first July discovery remains in custody. At the date of this edition the South African Police Service has not confirmed that a single offender is responsible for all of the deaths. Acting Police Minister Firoz Cachalia has cautioned against treating distinct events as one story before the links are proved. That caution is not coldness. It is how a court stays a court while a city mourns. Section 35 still requires a fair trial, the presumption of innocence and the right to silence. Section 60 of the Criminal Procedure Act still requires a bail enquiry particular to the person in the dock, not to the temperature of a headline.5 The Domestic Violence Act 116 of 1998, as amended, and the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences and Related Matters) Amendment Act already sit on the East Rand roll every Monday. Gender-based violence is not a new species of harm in this Republic. What is new this fortnight is the volume of public grief attached to a cluster of files. A working method, offered with respect. Do not try the uncharged cases from the bench of the charged one. Record why bail is granted or refused in the language of section 60. Protect the names of children and of witnesses who have not yet been called. If the State asks for time to complete forensic work, write the exhibit numbers and the date. Waiting without a reason is how a trial becomes a rumour. A rumour is another injury to a family that has already been injured enough. Notes. 1. Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996, ss 7(2), 9, 10, 11 and 12. 2. Carmichele v Minister of Safety and Security 2001 (4) SA 938 (CC). 3. S v Baloyi (Minister of Justice Intervening) 2000 (2) SA 425 (CC). 4. AK v Minister of Police 2022 ZACC 14; see also S v J.G.M [2025] ZAGPPHC 1405 on society’s interest in femicide sentencing. 5. Criminal Procedure Act 51 of 1977, s 60; cf. the warning in the University of Pretoria note on Carmichele and later bail failures (June 2025).
A note from Neelan Karikan. We send our condolences to every family on the East Rand who has had to collect a life in a bag of clothes. Outrage is a moral fact. Empathy is a judicial one. Authority that cannot sit with both is only noise. May the dead be named with care, and may the living still find a court that knows how to be kind without becoming careless.