SASCHA-DOMINIK BACHMANN
ON 21 November 2022 the Constitutional Court of South Africa ordered the release on parole of Janusz Walus, the Polish national who assassinated Chris Hani on 10 April 1993. Hani was the secretary-general of the South African Communist Party, and one of the leading anti-apartheid stalwarts. The court’s decision, understandably, caused outrage, anger and controversy in the country, in particular for the Hani family.
Hani’s assassination nearly caused the country to descend into civil war. But this was averted. Walus subsequently received the death penalty. The dawn of democracy in the country in 1994, and the subsequent abolition of the death penalty in South Africa, saw his death sentence commuted to life in prison in 2000.
As fate would have it, a decision by the Supreme Court of Appeal revoked the medical parole of Jacob Zuma, the third democratically elected president, on the same day as the Walus decision. Zuma had been sentenced to 15 months’ imprisonment for
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