Some of the logic here is troubling.
Apart from the slippery slope apparently created by the libertine new criminal statute that erases the sensible old distinction between an infant (under 7-year-olds), a child (7-u14), and a young person (14-17-year-olds), the reasoning behind this seeming beatification of someone in his 18th year and who, by the tested evidence, a high court judge found to have committed acts amounting to armed robbery, is a bit perplexing.
Firstly, how does it follow in logic for a technical misjudgment in procedural jurisdiction to embark on the trial at the High Court, lead to the conclusion that full pardon has been rightly granted? What becomes of the society and the particular victims of the identified armed robbery?
Does not logic or good reason rather lead us to extension of time to appeal the trial, nullification of the conviction and sentence, plus, simultaneously, a consequential order for commensurate proceedings at the statutorily permitted Family Court or other constitutionally guaranteed tribunal to protect society?
Secondly, wouldn’t it be outrageous libertarian postmodernism to otherwise suggest that no accounting can issue for criminal activities against a person with the physique and malevolence to commit even capital injuries to others once such violent malefactor can demonstrate a biological age below 18?
Even in the US from which we sometimes copy these monstrously ridiculous new age laws, there are provisions for judicial assessment of particular offences and peculiarities of the relevant accused person for the purpose of imposing an order for such an otherwise young person to be tried as an adult!
Thirdly, if the new legislation does indeed forbid trial and conviction of a factual murderer or armed robber merely on account of being a few months less than 18 years of age, I would respectfully submit that depending on the facts of particular cases, it would be open to a discerning judge to strike that provision down as contrary to the spirit and possibly the letters too of our constitution.
In the proper factual analysis of given cases, such a judge might properly nuance the conclusion to the effect that the provision goes against the fundamental rights of other citizens to life and or to equality.
Additionally, also, the court could properly hold on the law, that such indiscriminate benefit to this class of criminal accused persons (without regard to their individual circumstances), is certainly not “reasonably justifiable in a democratic society”!
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