''S v Combrink'' is an important case in South African law, heard in the Supreme Court of Appeal by Brand JA, Ponnan JA and Shongwe JA on May 25, 2011, with judgment handed down on June 23. BC Bredenkamp SC appeared for the appellant, and JJ Kotze for the State. Its significance lies primarily in the area of

punishment Punishment, commonly, is the imposition of an undesirable or unpleasant outcome upon an individual or group, meted out by an authority—in contexts ranging from child discipline to criminal law—as a deterrent to a particular action or beh ...

and

sentencing In criminal law, a sentence is the punishment for a crime ordered by a trial court after conviction in a criminal procedure, normally at the conclusion of a trial. A sentence may consist of imprisonment, a fine, or other sanctions. Sentences f ...

Facts

The appellant, a farmer, had fired two shots at an unidentified person walking across farmland, who had not responded to his calls. The second shot struck and killed that person. The farmer was convicted of

murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification (jurisprudence), justification or valid excuse (legal), excuse committed with the necessary Intention (criminal law), intention as defined by the law in a specific jurisd ...

by a single judge in the circuit court of the

North Gauteng High Court The Gauteng Division of the High Court of South Africa is a superior court of law which has general jurisdiction over the South African province of Gauteng and the eastern part of North West province. The main seat of the division is at Pretoria, ...

and sentenced to fifteen years' imprisonment, five of which were suspended on the usual conditions. An appeal to the full bench of that court was dismissed in respect of the conviction but upheld in respect of sentence, the court substituting the trial court's sentence with one of ten years' imprisonment.

Judgement

In an appeal to the Supreme Court of Appeal, it was held that, accepting the evidence of the witness, the appellant (who was a very good marksman) must subjectively have foreseen, when he aimed the second shot at the same place as the first, the possibility that the bullet could ricochet after striking a stone or some other object and in the process strike the deceased. Regardless of that foreseeable possibility, he went on to shoot. He was therefore guilty of murder, the intention being ''

dolus eventualis South African criminal law is the body of national law relating to crime in South Africa. In the definition of Van der Walt ''et al.'', a crime is "conduct which common or statute law prohibits and expressly or impliedly subjects to punishment ...

''. The court held that, given the public incense with sentences which appeared to favour a particular group in society, courts had to be conscious and sensitive to cases which appeared to have

racial Race is a categorization of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into groups generally viewed as distinct within a given society. The term came into common usage during the 16th century, when it was used to refer to groups of va ...

discriminatory Discrimination is the process of making unfair or prejudicial distinctions between people based on the groups, classes, or other categories to which they belong or are perceived to belong, such as race, gender, age, class, religion, or sexu ...

connotations, especially when dealing with the question of sentence.

Public interest In social science and economics, public interest is "the welfare or well-being of the general public" and society. While it has earlier philosophical roots and is considered to be at the core of democratic theories of government, often paired ...

was one of the essential considerations in determining an appropriate sentence. The public interest against discrimination was not necessarily in discrimination between black and white but rather between people in general, who perceive others, with prejudice, to be different or inferior to them. It was this perception that the judiciary should address. The effect of hate crimes went far beyond the victims and served to traumatise whole communities and damaged South African society. Without the decision makers in the criminal justice system being attuned to these issues, it would not be possible properly to combat hate crimes.Paras 24-25.

References

* ''S v Combrink'' 2012 (1) SACR 93 (SCA).

Notes

{{Reflist 2011 in South African case law South African criminal case law Supreme Court of Appeal of South Africa cases

Facts

Judgement

See also

References

Notes