The South African murder trial that has enthralled the world came to a close yesterday. The former Paralympian Oscar Pistorius was sentenced to 5 years in jail for killing his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp. The high court judge who has overseen the trial Thokozile Masipa spent an hour ruling on his sentence which she strived to ensure was “fair and just to society and to the accused”.
Whether that’s the case is always a subjective determination which the judge recognised. “Society cannot always get what they want. Courts do not exist for a popularity contest but only to dispense justice. The general public may not even know the difference between punishment and vengeance.”
Pistorius will be eligible for house arrest within 10 months which has attracted considerable criticism but Steenkamp’s parents said they believe justice had been delivered. Steenkamp’s mother told reporters: “It doesn’t matter. He’s going to pay something.”
The obvious tragedy is that no sentence will return their daughter.
“The loss of life cannot be reversed,” Masiba read. “Nothing I do or say today can reverse what happened to the deceased and to her family. Hopefully this sentence shall provide some sort of closure to the family … so they can move on with their lives.”
Last month the judge delivered a judgement that was not without critics. She found Pistorius not guilty of murder and rather convicted him of the equivalent of manslaughter. Yesterday the judge reiterated the extreme negligence with which Pistorius acted on the night he shot his girlfriend.
“Using a lethal weapon, a loaded firearm, the accused fired not one, but four shots into the door. The toilet was a small cubicle and there was no room for escape for the person behind the door,” she said.
The devastating consequence is that Steenkamp, a beloved daughter and friend and a vivacious lawyer with a promising future had her life cut short at age 29. Regardless of how that happened or how the person responsible spends his life, that won’t change.