Democratic South Africa's Response to Terror

Formulating and executing strategies to respond to terrorism are challenges for democratic states. Not only should the strategies be efficient, but also not at the cost of human rights, the rule of law and the Constitution. During the mid-1990s to 2001, South Africa was the victim of numerous terrorist acts carried out by the People Against Gangsterism and Drugs (PAGAD). This book discusses the problems and the methods used to combat domestic terrorism in constitutional democracies as well as the problems encountered by democratic South Africa in responding to PAGAD bearing in mind the legal-constitutional and the political constraints that this democracy faces. Using PAGAD as a case-study and discussing and analyzing the South African counter-terrorism strategies that were used against PAGAD, many interesting features are observed which clearly show that, while South Africa exemplified the problems that older constitutional democracies face when responding to terrorism, the country also deviated from what is usually expected from a constitutional democracy responding to terrorism.