The Price of Sadness: Comparison between the Netherlands and South Africa

Bereavement can be a precipitating and perpetuating factor for various psychiatric injuries. However, the normal experience of bereavement also causes significant disruption and stress in an individual’s psychosocial functioning. Both in the Netherlands and South Africa, a clear distinction is drawn between sadness and psychiatric injury. Dutch law, until recently, did not make provision for compensation for sadness, but only for psychiatric injury. This has changed with the coming into operation of the Wet Affectieschade on 1 January 2019. In terms of South African law, there is no claim for... Mehr ...