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S V Hendrix
''S v Hendrix'', an important case in South African Criminal procedure in South Africa, criminal procedure, dealt with s119 of the Criminal Procedure Act, 1977. The court held that this section and the rest of Chapter 19 do not, where the accused pleads not guilty, envisage a trial, nor that anything more shall be held than a preliminary enquiry in order to clarify the matters in respect of which the State and the accused are at issue. It is necessary for a "charge" to be put to the accused in order for him to know what the State case against him is eventually going to be. It is necessary for him to "plead" to that charge to indicate what his answer to that charge is. If his plea is one of Guilt (law), guilty, then there is provision for the proceedings to continue to finality. If his plea is one of not guilty then the proceedings thereafter are not trial proceedings. Accordingly, the rule that an accused person is entitled to a verdict once he has pleaded has no application as th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countries of Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe; and to the east and northeast by Mozambique and Eswatini. It also completely enclaves the country Lesotho. It is the southernmost country on the mainland of the Old World, and the second-most populous country located entirely south of the equator, after Tanzania. South Africa is a biodiversity hotspot, with unique biomes, plant and animal life. With over 60 million people, the country is the world's 24th-most populous nation and covers an area of . South Africa has three capital cities, with the executive, judicial and legislative branches of government based in Pretoria, Bloemfontein, and Cape Town respectively. The largest city is Johannesburg. About 80% of the population are Black Sou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Criminal Procedure In South Africa
Criminal procedure in South Africa refers to the adjudication process of that country's criminal law. It forms part of procedural or adjectival law, and describes the means by which its substantive counterpart, South African criminal law, is applied. It has its basis mainly in English law. History When the British occupied the Cape permanently in 1806, they retained the Roman-Dutch legal system. They concluded, however, that the criminal justice system was archaic, and so introduced one based on their own in 1828. It has been developed over the years to suit local conditions. The South African system today is basically accusatorial: that is, the state accuses and the accused defends. The accusation and its proof are state-driven, with a state-appointed prosecuting authority. Sources The sources of South African criminal procedure lie in the Constitution, the Criminal Procedure Act, 1977 (CPA), other statute law (for example, the Magistrates' Courts Act, 1944, the Supre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Criminal Procedure Act, 1977
The Criminal Procedure Act, 1977 (Act No. 51 of 1977) is an act of the Parliament of South Africa that governs criminal procedure in South Africa's legal system. It details the procedure for the whole system of criminal law, including search and seizure, arrest, the filing of charges, bail, the plea, the testimony of witnesses and the law of evidence, the verdict and sentence, and appeal. The act is also in force in Namibia, which inherited it from the South African administration of South-West Africa. Administration of the act was transferred to the SWA government in 1979, and since then the South African and Namibian versions have diverged through amendment. A new Namibian Criminal Procedure Act was passed in 2004 but has not yet come into force. See also * Criminal procedure in South Africa * National Forensic DNA Database of South Africa The National Forensic DNA Database of South Africa (NFDD) is a national DNA database used in law enforcement in South Africa. The C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Trial
In law, a trial is a coming together of parties to a dispute, to present information (in the form of evidence) in a tribunal, a formal setting with the authority to adjudicate claims or disputes. One form of tribunal is a court. The tribunal, which may occur before a judge, jury, or other designated trier of fact, aims to achieve a resolution to their dispute. Types by finder of fact Where the trial is held before a group of members of the community, it is called a jury trial. Where the trial is held solely before a judge, it is called a bench trial. Hearings before administrative bodies may have many of the features of a trial before a court, but are typically not referred to as trials. An appeal (appellate proceeding) is also generally not deemed a trial, because such proceedings are usually restricted to a review of the evidence presented before the trial court, and do not permit the introduction of new evidence. Types by dispute Trials can also be divided by th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plea
In legal terms, a plea is simply an answer to a claim made by someone in a criminal case under common law using the adversarial system. Colloquially, a plea has come to mean the assertion by a defendant at arraignment, or otherwise in response to a criminal charge, whether that person pleaded or pled guilty, not guilty, ''nolo contendere'' (a.k.a. no contest), no case to answer (in the United Kingdom), or Alford plea (in the United States). The concept of the plea is one of the significant differences between criminal procedure under common law and procedure under the civil law system. Under common law, a defendant who pleads guilty is automatically convicted, and the remainder of the trial is used to determine the sentence. This produces a system known as plea bargaining, in which defendants may plead guilty in exchange for a more lenient punishment. In civil law jurisdictions, a confession by the defendant is treated like any other piece of evidence. A full confession does ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guilt (law)
In criminal law, guilt is the state of being responsible for the commission of an offense. Legal guilt is entirely externally defined by the state, or more generally a "court of law". Being "guilty" of a criminal offense means that one has committed a violation of criminal law, or performed all the elements of the offense set out by a criminal statute. The determination that one has committed that violation is made by an external body (a "court of law") after the determination of the facts by a finder of fact or “factfinder” (i.e. a jury) and is, therefore, as definitive as the record-keeping of the body. For instance, in the case of a bench trial a judge acts as both the court of law and the factfinder, whereas in a jury trial the jury is the trier of fact and the judge acts only as the trier of law. Thus, the most basic definition is fundamentally circular: a person is guilty of violating a law if a factfinder in a court of law so says. Philosophically, guilt in cri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Verdict
In law, a verdict is the formal finding of fact made by a jury on matters or questions submitted to the jury by a judge. In a bench trial, the judge's decision near the end of the trial is simply referred to as a finding. In England and Wales, a coroner's findings used to be called verdicts but are, since 2009, called conclusions (see ). Etymology The term "verdict", from the Latin ''veredictum'', literally means "to say the truth" and is derived from Middle English ''verdit'', from Anglo-Norman: a compound of ''ver'' ("true", from the Latin ''vērus'') and ''dit'' ("speech", from the Latin ''dictum'', the neuter past participle of ''dīcere'', to say). Criminal law In a criminal case, the verdict, which may be either "not guilty" or "guilty"—except in Scotland where the verdict of " not proven" is also available—is handed down by the jury. Different counts in the same case may have different verdicts. A verdict of guilty in a criminal case is generally followed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
South African Law Reports
Case citation is a system used by legal professionals to identify past court case decisions, either in series of books called reporters or law reports, or in a neutral style that identifies a decision regardless of where it is reported. Case citations are formatted differently in different jurisdictions, but generally contain the same key information. A legal citation is a "reference to a legal precedent or authority, such as a case, statute, or treatise, that either substantiates or contradicts a given position." Where cases are published on paper, the citation usually contains the following information: * Court that issued the decision * Report title * Volume number * Page, section, or paragraph number * Publication year In some report series, for example in England, Australia and some in Canada, volumes are not numbered independently of the year: thus the year and volume number (usually no greater than 4) are required to identify which book of the series has the case repor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
