Images of Punishment in the People’s Courts of Cape Town 1985–7: from Prefigurative Justice to Populist Violence

Abstract

Since 1984, the intensified challenge to white domination in the wake of the tricameral constitution brought with it an attempt by extra-parliamentary groupings to establish organizations of people’s power within their townships.² One of the components of people’s power are people’s courts (referred to in some areas as Street Committees) whose aim was to enforce a new morality, a people’s morality that conformed to the political ideals of their liberatory projects. These courts took shape and operated during times of relatively high daily levels of pervasive street fighting and skirmishing between the armed state machinery — police and army — and predominantly young blacks in the townships throughout South Africa.

Senior lecturer, Institute of Criminology, University of Cape Town, and masters student at the University of Leeds respectively. We wish to thank the following researchers who helped us with interviews, information and insights: Eunice Mabuya, the late Ebenezer Mehlamakulu, Nini Sipuye, Debbie Hene, Chris Ngcokoto, Malusi Makalima, Nompumelelo Mbebe, Lindiwe Kota, Themba Mlonyeni, and several others who have preferred, for reasons of their own, to remain unidentified.