Judgment No CCZ 8/16 13 Const. Application No CCZ 48/15 50(5)(d) provides that any person who is detained, including a sentenced prisoner, has the right “to conditions of detention that are consistent with human dignity, including the opportunity for physical exercise and the provision, at State expense, of adequate accommodation, ablution facilities, personal hygiene, nutrition, appropriate reading material and medical treatment”. Very significantly, s 50(8) stipulates that “an arrest or detention which contravenes this section, or in which the conditions set out in this section are not met, is illegal”. The traditional approach to punishment for serious offences is derived from the Roman lex talionis and its equivalents in other ancient societies, whereby justice is to be attained through the exaction of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth and a life for a life. The new Constitution ushers in a fundamental departure from this archaic retributive approach to one of social reintegration. This is emphasised in s 227(1) which articulates the rehabilitative functions of the Prisons and Correctional Service: ‘There is a Prisons and Correctional Service which is responsible for— (a) the protection of society from criminals through the incarceration and rehabilitation of convicted persons and others who are lawfully required to be detained, and their reintegration into society; and (b) the administration of prisons and correctional facilities.” The regional and European case authorities that I have cited earlier all point to the conclusion that whole life imprisonment, without rehabilitative treatment coupled with the possibility of release, is tantamount to inhuman and degrading treatment in contravention of the relevant constitutional and conventional rights. Similarly, all the international instruments alluded to above, viz. the 1976 Covenant and the Standard Minimum Rules of 1957 and 2015, capture the essentially twofold purpose of penal