Citation

Pretorius HGG, Diale BMT. Child Abuse Res. South Afr. 2016; 17(2): 1-12.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016, South African Professional Society on the Abuse of Children)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

In most of the sexual offense cases, the victim's testimony is a pivotal part of the evidence presented in the court. In South Africa, the admissibility of a child's evidence in criminal cases is based on the presiding officer finding the child competent to testify. This is mostly determined through cursory voir dire examinations, often using inappropriate and inconsistent procedures. Developmental and international research on the competency examinations highlights concerns regarding current practices and provides guidelines on appropriate ways to assess the competency of the child-witness (Klemfuss & Ceci, 2012). While the assessment of child-witnesses and their competency is widely practiced in South Africa, there is no standard framework or uniform procedures that guide this assessment. This qualitative research relied on the principles of grounded theory to explore existing child-witness-competency-assessment procedures with a selected group of psycho-legal practitioners in South Africa. The research documented the absence of a formal protocol for child-witness-competency testing and highlighted the lack of minimum standards. A qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews with psychologists and data obtained from supportive documentation provided information about psychological perceptions, and age- and developmentally appropriate, psychological procedures for child-witness-competency-examinations. Current procedures were analysed to develop a framework that offers a multidimensional assessment approach. This framework promotes the adoption of a uniform psycho-legal approach to child-witness-competency-assessment in South Africa.

Language: en