Zealand v Minister of Justice  Zealand v Minister of Justice is an important case in South African constitutional law. In January 1997, the applicant was charged with crimes which included rape and murder. The matter was postponed. While he was remanded in custody, he escaped. He was re-arrested some three months later and then charged with escaping from custody. He was convicted and sentenced to six months' imprisonment wholly suspended, but remained in prison as an awaiting-trial-prisoner. In September 1998 he was charged with a second murder, for which he was convicted and sentenced to eighteen years' imprisonment. His appeal against the second murder, in August 1999, was successful, but the Registrar of the High Court negligently failed to issue a warrant for the applicant's release. He remained in a maximum-security prison until December 2004, over five years later. Throughout the years of his detention, his first murder case had been repeatedly postponed. In addition, the record showed that, on October 11, 2001, a magistrate had ordered that his case be postponed, and that he be released on warning. The record did not show why this was not done. He sued the Ministers of Correctional Services and Justice, the respondents, for damages arising from unlawful detention. In their defence the respondents admitted negligence but contended that, if the applicant had been released from maximum-security prison he would immediately have been transferred to a medium-security prison as an awaiting-trial prisoner. The High Court found that his entire detention had been unlawful. When the Ministers appealed, the Supreme Court of Appeal found that only the detention since 11 October 2001 had been unlawful. The court held that the question of whether the applicant's detention was consistent with the principle of legality and his right to freedom and security of the person in section 12(1) of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996, was a constitutional matter. "In light of the view I take of the matter," wrote Langa CJ, "the application for leave to appeal should be granted." The legal issue before the Constitutional Court in this application to appeal to it (to have the whole five years declared unlawful) was whether it is lawful to detain a person as if he were a convicted prisoner where   The court held that section 12(1)(a) of the Constitution enshrines the right not to be deprived of freedom arbitrarily or without just cause. The respondents bore the burden of justifying the applicant's deprivation of liberty. The applicant had been "deprived of liberty" because, "inter alia",   Respect for human dignity demanded that this difference be recognised.