Sexual Offences Act as it relates to rape under scrutiny in ConCourt

The Constitutional Court is hearing arguments on Thursday, which could see the Sexual Offences Act related to rape revised.

The ConCourt proceedings follow a landmark judgment by the Pretoria High Court in September last year related to "believed consent" in sexual offence cases.

Legal teams both for and against the change in law started making their arguments in the ConCourt on Thursday morning.
 
The constitutional challenge to have the Sexual Offences Act amended was launched by NPO, The Embrace Project, three years ago.

In September last year, the Pretoria High Court ruled in favour of the NPO for the act to be revised. 

Senior counsel for the Embrace Project, Nazreen Rajab-Budlender, faced questions from a panel of ConCourt judges on Thursday about what the Embrace Project seeks from the court.

"We say that if the accused raises consent as a defence, then he must prove that he took reasonable steps to ascertain that consent."

The court is set to hear arguments from the Centre for Applied Legal Studies and the Women’s Legal Centre, who are against the law being changed.