In South Africa there is a problem with the South African laws protecting suspects and social media. South Africa has two main laws that are meant to protect the identity of suspects in criminal court cases, the criminal procedure act of 1977 which does not allow any publication of the accused in any way until the day of the court case or the day of the plead. Another is the South African police Service Act which doesn’t allow the publishing of pictures of someone who is in custody on suspicion of having committed a crime before a decision to prosecute has been made or criminal proceedings have started. These are in place in order to protect the accused so that their name is not dragged through the dirt or actions taken against their families. According to the South African government both of the laws meant to protect the accused were broken in through the means of social media by two major Newspaper sources over the case of an accused rapist in South Africa. The penalties in which of breaking this law include jail time and fines for both.
In my opinion I think it’s very respectable what the South African government does for the accused especially in the scene of a sexually controversial cases. Having a large amount of anonymity is very valuable when being charged in a criminal court case because it keeps you protected from people jumping the gun and destroying your career through the means of dragging your name down before your proven guilty in the court of law. However controlling this issue at hand in regards to the use of social media will be extremely hard to accomplish and would to delve into some controversial issues dealing with limiting freedom of speech for South Africans, which may lead to a possible result in a closer reform to an authoritarian government if the issue of social media meddling with court cases still arise in the future.