SA’s court of public opinion is quite a strident one, and often far more counterrevolutionary than anyone on the bench targeted by the African National Congress.

Everyone has an opinion on Schabir Shaik ­ our comedians are having a field day. Marc Lottering suggests that Discovery medical aid members ask for discounts right now, because the company must be celebrating the fact that they don’t have to provide Shaik with bed and board for the next 14 years.

A film on TV this week, Longford, was a sober reminder of the power of the court of public opinion. As it ended, I discovered I was capable of feeling pity for “Moors murderer” Myra Hindley, convicted of murdering three children in 1966.

The film suggested that because Hindley was a woman who murdered children, she was victimised by an outraged public that would not countenance her parole. Many men who murdered were paroled while she rotted.

Hindley became eligible for parole in the late 1990s. She fought all the way to the European Court of Human Rights for her release.

But the British home secretary, no doubt influenced by the strident opposition from the victims’ families and the tabloids, stubbornly refused to let her out.

She died in her 37th year of custody, after serving more than her original minimum sentence.

SA has a legal framework for parole. While victims of criminals are perfectly within their rights to object to decisions made by the parole board, it is sometimes going to make unpopular decisions.

A friend of the president-in-waiting is released on medical parole, and some people suggest his political connections scored him a get-out-of-jail-free card.

Clive Derby-Lewis, who murdered a beloved hero of the struggle, is applying for parole and other people suggest he stay right where he is for as long possible.

It doesn’t, and shouldn’t, work that way. The law should apply equally to every prisoner, no matter which side of the political spectrum they are on. Of concern, of course, is the fact that few believe there is any real rehabilitation in SA’s prisons, and the high recidivism rates are proof of this.

But despite that, compassion is required. I have written before in this space about prisoner MM, who died a protracted and painful death in Durban’s Westville prison, where no antiretroviral drugs were available.

I don’t know what crime prisoner MM committed. I don’t care whether he was a paedophile or a rapist or a murderer. Punishments must fit crimes and parole should be available to all.

With acknowledgements to Rehana Rossouw and Business Day.