A man who served nearly eight years in jail for a crime he did not commit and a further 77 days after he was cleared on appeal, will receive R750 000 in damages, reports the Cape Times.

This comes after the Department of Justice & Constitutional Development (DJCD) and the Department of Correctional Services failed to order his release.

The Mpumalanga High Court (Mbombela) found that Wonder Nkambule was arbitrarily deprived of his freedom and should be compensated.

Nkambule was sentenced to life imprisonment in November 2013. He successfully appealed the judgment and sentence in December 2021.

An order for his immediate release was given on the same day...

But it was not timeously transmitted to Correctional Services personnel and he was only released in March 2022. 

The court noted his detention in itself was unlawful.

The onus rests on the detaining officer to justify it.

The Constitutional Court on numerous occasions remarked that the Constitution guarantees the right to freedom and security of the person, which includes the right not to be deprived of freedom arbitrarily or without just cause.

The court found that the delay was occasioned by the DJCD and that the plaintiff successfully proved on a balance of probabilities that his detention was unlawful.

It said it is impossible to determine an award of damages for this kind of impairment to Nkambule’s dignity with mathematical accuracy.

It concluded that reasonable compensation is an amount of R750 000.

Full Cape Times report

Judgment