Oscar Pistorius became eligible for parole in March, confirms ConCourt

The Constitutional Court issued a ruling effectively confirming that former Paralympian Oscar Pistorius indeed became eligible for parole in March this year.

Pistorius is currently serving a 13-year-and-five-month prison sentence for the 2013 murder of his model girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp whom he shot through the bathroom door of his Pretoria East home on Valentine’s Day that year.

In March this year, Pistorius made an application for parole, but it was denied after the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) – which handed down his final sentence – issued a communique indicating in effect that he would only become eligible for parole next August.

He subsequently turned to the Constitutional Court.

In 2016, Pistorius was sentenced to six years behind bars for murdering Reeva Steenkamp but in 2017, the SCA increased this to an effective 13 years and five months on appeal.

This ultimately led to some confusion around when his sentence had actually started, and as a result when he became eligible for parole.

The SCA previously issued a communique indicating that Pistorius’ sentence started in 2016 – which would have made him eligible for parole this March. But then days ahead of his scheduled hearing it issued another one indicating his sentence had in fact started in 2017.

Pistorius then turned to the Constitutional Court arguing that his sentence and the amount of time he had to serve before becoming eligible for parole had effectively been unfairly increased.

His application was ultimately not opposed with the state agreeing in its papers that his sentence would have started in 2016. And today, the Constitutional Court handed down an order confirming as much as well as that he had served half his sentence in the requisite period required before becoming eligible for parole by this March.

-EWN

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