Case Hall

Facts. The accused was convicted of raping a nine-year-old girl by anal penetration. At the time the common-law definition of rape covered only unlawful vaginal penetration of a woman; anal penetration would have been indecent assault. The lower courts sought to extend (develop) the common-law definition of rape to include anal penetration.

Legal question. May a court develop the common-law definition of a crime to the accused's disadvantage, and if so, may the extended definition be applied retrospectively to the accused before the court?

Judgment. The Constitutional Court extended the common-law definition of rape to include anal penetration of a female, but held that this extension could not be applied retrospectively to Masiya. Applying it to him would offend the legality principle and his fair-trial rights.

Significance. The leading modern authority on ius praevium and the limits of judicial development of crimes: the courts may develop crimes, but not so as to convict the accused before them on a definition that did not exist when they acted. (Rape has since been fully codified and made gender-neutral by the Sexual Offences Act 32 of 2007.)

Exam tip. Use Masiya for the legality principle — specifically ius praevium (non-retrospectivity) and the limits on developing crimes. Note the split: the definition was extended for the future, but not applied to Masiya himself.

Facts. After the accused had been convicted, but before sentence, the penal jurisdiction of the court was increased. A heavier sentence was then imposed than was competent when the offence was committed and the trial began.

Legal question. May an increased sentencing jurisdiction be applied retrospectively, so that an accused receives a heavier penalty than the one applicable when the offence was committed?

Judgment. The Constitutional Court held that the retrospective application of the increased sentencing jurisdiction was unconstitutional; the accused could not be sentenced more heavily than the law allowed when he committed the offence.

Significance. The leading authority applying the legality principle (nulla poena) to punishment — the non-retrospectivity guarantee protects the accused not only as to the crime but also as to the penalty.

Exam tip. Use Veldman for the punishment limb of legality (nulla poena sine praevia lege). Pair with Masiya (ius praevium as to the definition of the crime).

Facts. The accused removed another person's motor vehicle without consent and took it for a joyride, intending to bring it back. The vehicle overturned into a donga and he was found standing next to it.

Legal question. Is the temporary unauthorised use of another person's property, with the intention of returning it, theft?

Judgment. The Appellate Division held that furtum usus is not theft, and the conviction could not stand on that basis.

Significance. A textbook application of the principle of legality through strict interpretation. Parliament filled the resulting gap the following year with section 1 of the General Law Amendment Act 50 of 1956, which made the unlawful use of another person's property an offence in its own right.

Exam tip. Use Sibiya for the ius strictum aspect of legality, and always mention the statutory sequel. Contrast S v Ndebele, where the court was willing to stretch appropriation to reach electricity.

Facts. Ewels, an ordinary citizen, was assaulted inside a police station by a sergeant who was off duty. Several on-duty policemen were present and could readily have prevented or stopped the attack, but stood by and did nothing. Ewels survived and sued the Minister in delict for damages, based on the on-duty policemen's failure to intervene. This is a civil claim, not a prosecution — nobody died and nobody was charged.

Legal question. When does a legal duty to act positively arise, so that a failure to act is wrongful? Is the list of recognised duty categories closed?

Judgment. The Appellate Division abandoned the closed-category approach. The duty on the policemen to come to Ewels's assistance was a legal duty; since the failure occurred in the course of their duties, the Minister was vicariously liable for the damages claimed.

Significance. The leading authority on wrongful omissions. Decided in delict, its boni mores criterion has been received into criminal law by analogy for assessing the unlawfulness of an omission, and it is cited in that context throughout SA criminal law. The general test is the same; what differs is that criminal liability additionally requires fault (intention or negligence) and a crime charged.

Exam tip. Essential for any omissions question. State the general rule: an omission is unlawful where the boni mores demand positive action. Then identify the source of the duty on the facts (statute, contract, prior conduct, special relationship, public office) — the list is not closed, but these categories guide the analysis. Name it correctly: it is Minister van Polisie v Ewels, a delict case — writing "S v Ewels" or claiming an accused was convicted will cost you marks.

Facts. The accused, who had been fasting and had drunk alcohol, entered a state of automatism (a dissociative state brought on by hypoglycaemia) and shot and killed a person in a bar. He acted without conscious control.

Legal question. Is a person who acts in a state of automatism (not caused by mental illness) criminally liable, given that criminal liability requires a voluntary act?

Judgment. The court found that the accused had acted involuntarily in a state of sane automatism and accordingly could not be held criminally liable for the killing.

Significance. A classic illustration of sane automatism negating the voluntary-conduct (act) requirement, and of the distinction between sane and insane automatism.

Exam tip. Use Stellmacher for the voluntariness requirement and sane automatism. Distinguish sane automatism (acquittal) from insane automatism (mental illness → s 78 CPA special verdict). Beware antecedent liability where the accused culpably caused their own automatic state.

Facts. Mr Skosana was injured in a car accident, arrested for drunken driving and detained. He later complained of severe abdominal pain; despite a doctor's note that he be taken to hospital immediately, there was a negligent delay in providing medical aid, and he died. His widow claimed damages, alleging that the delay caused his death.

Legal question. How is factual causation determined, and how does it differ from legal causation? Was the negligent delay in obtaining medical treatment a cause of the death?

Judgment. The Appellate Division held, on a balance of probabilities, that but for the negligent delay the deceased would not have died — factual causation was established — and the Minister was liable.

Significance. The foundational South African statement of the distinction between factual causation (the but-for test) and legal causation. Although a delict case, it is the standard authority cited for factual causation in criminal law too.

Exam tip. Use Skosana for the two-stage causation enquiry and the but-for test of factual causation. Establish factual causation first (Skosana), then turn to legal causation (Mokgethi, Daniëls).

Facts. The accused shot the deceased twice in the back; these wounds were mortal and the deceased would have died within about half an hour without medical treatment, in a remote area where none was available. A further shot was then fired into his head, killing him instantly — and it was not proved that the accused fired that final shot.

Legal question. Can the accused be the legal cause of the death where the immediate cause was a later shot, and is only a "proximate" cause recognised as a legal cause in South African law?

Judgment. The Appellate Division dealt with whether the back wounds (rather than the fatal head shot) legally caused the death; the judges rejected proximate cause as the sole criterion and analysed legal causation through the broader theories of causation.

Significance. A landmark causation decision and the clearest South African rejection of the proximate-cause theory as the exclusive test for legal causation. It paved the way for the flexible approach later confirmed in Mokgethi.

Exam tip. Use Daniëls to show that legal causation is not limited to the proximate cause, and to introduce the adequate-causation theory. Read it with Mokgethi (the flexible umbrella test).

Facts. The accused shot the victim, who became a paraplegic. Months after discharge from hospital the victim died from pressure sores caused by neglecting to change position — something a paraplegic must do. The question was whether the accused had legally caused the death.

Legal question. Had the accused legally caused the victim's death, given that the immediate cause of death was the victim's own failure to change his position?

Judgment. The Appellate Division held that the accused's original act (the shooting) was not the proximate cause of the specific death. The victim's failure to take the precautions required by his paraplegic condition broke the legal causal chain.

Significance. The leading SA authority on legal causation. The flexible "proximate cause" test replaced a rigid approach and allows courts to consider whether it would be just and reasonable to hold the accused liable for the precise way in which the harm materialised.

Exam tip. Remember: factual causation (but-for test) is only the first step. Legal causation asks whether the accused's act was sufficiently closely connected to the death. Use Mokgethi for the flexible test; contrast with Tembani where medical treatment did NOT break the chain.

Facts. During a robbery the accused shot the deceased in the neck. She was placed on a ventilator in hospital but, two days later, showed no brain activity; after further neurological examination the ventilator was disconnected and she registered no heart activity. The accused argued that the cause of death was the disconnection of the ventilator, not the gunshot — a novus actus interveniens.

Legal question. Does the disconnection of a ventilator from a brain-dead patient, kept alive artificially after being mortally wounded, constitute a novus actus interveniens that breaks the causal chain between the wounding and the death?

Judgment. The Appellate Division upheld the murder conviction. The original gunshot wound remained the operative legal cause of death; disconnecting the ventilator from a brain-dead patient did not break the chain of causation.

Significance. A leading authority on novus actus interveniens in the medical / life-support context. It confirms that withdrawing futile artificial life-support does not relieve the original wrongdoer of causal responsibility for the death.

Exam tip. Use Williams for the life-support scenario: switching off a ventilator on a brain-dead patient is not a novus actus. Pair with Tembani (treatment complications) — in both, the chain holds; contrast with Mokgethi, where the victim's own omission broke it.

Facts. The accused stabbed the victim who was hospitalised. In hospital the victim developed a bacterial infection and died — partly from the original injury and partly from the hospital-acquired infection. The accused argued that the medical treatment (and resulting infection) broke the causal chain.

Legal question. Does a complication arising from medical treatment of a stab wound constitute a novus actus interveniens that breaks the causal chain between the accused's act and the victim's death?

Judgment. The SCA upheld the murder conviction. The medical complications were a foreseeable consequence of the original assault. The accused takes the victim as he finds them, including the risks of medical intervention needed because of the accused's own unlawful act.

Significance. The leading authority on the novus actus doctrine in the medical-treatment context. Confirms the principle that the accused cannot escape liability because the victim sought treatment, and that foreseeable treatment-related complications do not break the chain.

Exam tip. Pair with Mokgethi. Both deal with legal causation. In Tembani the chain held (treatment is foreseeable); in Mokgethi the chain was broken (victim's own choice not to take necessary precautions). Use to illustrate when the chain breaks and when it does not.

Facts. The accused and his wife, who was partially disabled and unstable, were unhappily married. During a quarrel she threatened to shoot herself; he loaded a rifle, handed it to her and told her to shoot herself because she was a burden. She did so and died. The trial court acquitted him of murder on the ground that her own voluntary act of suicide broke the chain of causation, and the Minister of Justice reserved a question of law for the Appellate Division.

Legal question. Does the voluntary suicide of the deceased always operate as a novus actus interveniens that relieves the person who incited or assisted the suicide of liability for the death?

Judgment. The Appellate Division answered the reserved question against the trial court's reasoning: suicide by the deceased is not automatically a novus actus interveniens, and an inciter or helper may on the facts be convicted of murder, attempted murder or culpable homicide.

Significance. The leading South African authority on assisted suicide and on the limits of novus actus interveniens where the intervening act is the victim's own free conduct. It remains the starting point in every debate about assisted dying and euthanasia in South African law.

Exam tip. Use Grotjohn for the proposition that a free, voluntary act by the victim does not automatically break the causal chain — ask whether that act was foreseen and formed part of the causal sequence the accused set going. Note also the exam favourite: suicide itself is not a crime, but helping with it may be murder.

Facts. Two men were threatened by a third armed man who ordered them to kill a fourth person or be killed themselves. One of the two participated in the killing; the other did not. The participant was charged with murder and raised necessity as a defence.

Legal question. Can necessity operate as a complete defence to murder, and if so, under what conditions?

Judgment. The Appellate Division held that necessity could in principle be a complete defence to murder in truly exceptional circumstances. The convicted accused's appeal was allowed — he had been threatened with his own death and could not reasonably have been expected to resist.

Significance. The leading authority allowing necessity as a complete defence to murder in SA law — highly exceptional. Establishes that even the most serious crime can yield to necessity where the threat is irresistible and imminent. Contrasted with situations where the accused could have avoided the dilemma.

Exam tip. Necessity as a complete defence to murder: available in principle but applied very strictly. The reasonable person standard is critical — would a reasonable person also have yielded? Note the difference from private defence (which requires an unlawful attack by another person).

Facts. The accused used force to protect another person from what he perceived to be an unlawful attack, and the question was whether private defence extends to the protection of a third party.

Legal question. May a person rely on private defence when acting to protect not himself but another person from an unlawful attack?

Judgment. The Appellate Division confirmed that private defence extends to the defence of others on the same basis as self-defence.

Significance. The standard authority that private (self-)defence includes defence of a third person, subject to the ordinary requirements and limits of private defence.

Exam tip. Use Patel to show private defence covers the defence of others. Still apply the ordinary requirements: an unlawful attack, on a legally protected interest, met by defensive conduct that is necessary and proportionate.

Facts. The accused, believing his life was in danger from two people approaching his vehicle at night, fired shots killing one and wounding another. It turned out the people were not actually armed and posed no real threat.

Legal question. Can a person who honestly but unreasonably believes he is under attack rely on private defence (putative private defence)?

Judgment. The Appellate Division held that putative private defence negates dolus where the accused genuinely (though mistakenly) believed he was acting in self-defence. Liability was reduced from murder to culpable homicide.

Significance. The leading case on putative private defence — the situation where the accused mistakenly believes the requirements for private defence are present. Confirms the distinction between genuine (private) defence and putative (mistaken) defence, and explains the fault consequences.

Exam tip. Distinguish: (1) Real private defence — the attack actually exists, conduct is justified and no crime. (2) Putative private defence (De Oliveira) — the accused genuinely but wrongly believes an attack exists; dolus negated, may reduce to culpable homicide. Know both and apply to facts.

Facts. A municipal traffic officer was ordered by his superintendent to bring a fellow officer, who had abused a member of the public, back to the office. The colleague refused to come, so the appellant forced him into a vehicle, causing superficial bruising, and in the process called him a pikkenien. He was convicted of common assault and crimen iniuria.

Legal question. Does the defence of obedience to orders excuse the assault, and can a racially demeaning epithet found a conviction of crimen iniuria?

Judgment. The Natal Provincial Division held that the third requirement was not met, since neither the appellant nor the superintendent believed force could be used, so the defence failed. The assault conviction was nevertheless set aside because the State could not prove that the appellant knew he was acting unlawfully, while the crimen iniuria conviction was upheld.

Significance. The main modern South African authority setting out the three requirements of obedience to orders, and a clear illustration that a failed ground of justification may still be followed by an acquittal for want of awareness of unlawfulness. It also confirms that racially demeaning language violates dignitas in the constitutional era.

Exam tip. Keep unlawfulness and fault apart. The defence of obedience to orders failed, yet the accused was acquitted of assault because he lacked knowledge of unlawfulness, which is part of dolus. Do not report the case as a successful obedience-to-orders defence.

Facts. A mother, in a disturbed mental state, placed her infant children on a fire, killing one. Her criminal capacity — whether mental illness had deprived her of the ability to appreciate wrongfulness or to act in accordance with that appreciation — was in issue.

Legal question. How is criminal capacity assessed where mental illness is raised, and what is the nature of that enquiry?

Judgment. The Appellate Division emphasised that the enquiry into mental illness and criminal capacity is fact-specific, and dealt with the accused's mental state at the time of the killing.

Significance. An early leading statement on criminal capacity and mental illness, now framed by the test in s 78 of the Criminal Procedure Act 51 of 1977 (appreciation of wrongfulness + acting in accordance with that appreciation).

Exam tip. Use Mahlinza for the two-legged capacity test (appreciate wrongfulness + act accordingly) and the fact-specific nature of the mental-illness enquiry. Link it to s 78 CPA and the special verdict.

Facts. After a party, the heavily intoxicated accused drove his car into a group of people standing in the road, killing one and injuring others. He said he believed they would move out of the way.

Legal question. What is the effect of voluntary intoxication on criminal liability — can it negate voluntariness, criminal capacity or intention?

Judgment. The Appellate Division rejected the specific-intent approach and held that intoxication must be assessed for its actual effect on capacity and intention. Chretien's intoxication negated the intention required for the assault charges, and he was convicted of culpable homicide for the death.

Significance. The landmark case on intoxication. It led directly to s 1 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1 of 1988, which created a statutory offence of committing a prohibited act while criminally incapable through voluntary intoxication.

Exam tip. Chretien judges intoxication by its real effect (voluntariness / capacity / intention), not a fixed rule. Remember the legislative response: s 1 of Act 1 of 1988.

Facts. In a road-rage incident the accused, after being provoked, beat another driver to death with a hockey stick. He raised the defence of non-pathological criminal incapacity due to provocation and emotional stress.

Legal question. Can provocation or emotional stress give rise to a defence of non-pathological criminal incapacity, and how does it relate to sane automatism?

Judgment. The SCA rejected the defence on the facts and narrowed it, equating non-pathological incapacity from provocation with sane automatism (genuinely involuntary conduct).

Significance. Curtailed the previously expanding provocation / emotional-stress defence and clarified that loss of self-control does not equal loss of criminal capacity. The leading modern authority.

Exam tip. Eadie limits the provocation defence: distinguish losing your temper (still voluntary, capacity intact) from genuine automatism (involuntary). Courts require strong objective support.

Facts. Oscar Pistorius fired four shots through a closed toilet door in his home, killing Reeva Steenkamp, claiming he believed an intruder was behind the door. The trial court (Gauteng High Court) convicted him of culpable homicide; on the State's appeal the SCA replaced that with a murder conviction; the Constitutional Court later refused Pistorius leave to appeal, so the SCA's murder conviction stood.

Legal question. For dolus eventualis, must the accused have foreseen the death of the specific, correctly-identified victim, or does foresight that whoever was behind the door might die suffice?

Judgment. The SCA (per Leach JA) held the trial court had misapplied dolus eventualis: on the accused's own version he foresaw that the person behind the door could be killed and fired anyway. The culpable-homicide conviction was set aside and replaced with murder.

Significance. The highest-profile modern application of dolus eventualis. Confirms that a mistaken belief about the victim's identity does not exclude intention, and that it was the SCA — not the Constitutional Court — that entered the murder conviction (the CC merely refused leave to appeal).

Exam tip. Use Pistorius for two points: (1) dolus eventualis requires foresight of the possibility of death plus reconciliation; and (2) error as to the victim's identity (error in objecto) does not exclude dolus. Cite the SCA, not the CC, for the murder conviction.

Facts. A bus driver drove around a closed boom and across a railway level crossing, into the path of an oncoming train. The bus was struck and ten schoolchildren were killed. He was convicted of murder (dolus eventualis) and attempted murder in the trial court.

Legal question. Was dolus eventualis established — in particular, did the driver reconcile himself with the possibility of the passengers' deaths, or did he merely (negligently) believe the collision would not occur?

Judgment. The SCA (per Brand JA) set aside the murder and attempted-murder convictions and substituted culpable homicide. Although the driver foresaw the possibility of a collision, it was not proved that he reconciled himself with the deaths — he took a calculated (if grossly negligent) risk, banking on getting across in time.

Significance. The leading modern authority on the SECOND (volitional) leg of dolus eventualis — reconciliation. It is the key case distinguishing dolus eventualis from conscious negligence (luxuria): foresight of the risk without reconciliation yields culpable homicide, not murder.

Exam tip. Do NOT stop at foresight. Humphreys is the trap-case: he foresaw the risk but did not reconcile himself with the deaths, so he was guilty of culpable homicide, not murder. Contrast Pistorius (foresight + reconciliation → murder).

Facts. Goosen took part in an armed robbery, foreseeing the possibility that a fellow robber might intentionally shoot and kill the victim. In the event, however, the fellow robber's firearm discharged involuntarily and accidentally — not as a deliberate shot — and the deceased was killed.

Legal question. For dolus eventualis, must the accused have foreseen the actual way (the causal sequence) in which the death occurred, or is foresight of death in general enough, regardless of how it comes about?

Judgment. The Appellate Division held that, because Goosen foresaw an intentional shooting but the death resulted from an involuntary, accidental discharge — a material deviation from the foreseen causal sequence — the intention (dolus eventualis) required for murder was not established.

Significance. The leading authority establishing "foresight of the causal sequence" as a requirement of dolus eventualis in consequence crimes. Before Goosen the manner in which the consequence occurred was irrelevant so long as the consequence itself was foreseen; Goosen changed that.

Exam tip. Use Goosen for the foresight-of-the-causal-sequence rule: if death occurs in a way markedly different from what the accused foresaw, dolus eventualis fails. Distinguish foreseeing a deliberate shot from an accidental or involuntary discharge.

Facts. The accused left South Africa taking jewellery without the Reserve Bank permission required by the exchange-control regulations. She claimed she was unaware that such permission was needed — i.e. she was ignorant of the law.

Legal question. Can ignorance or mistake of the law (ignorantia iuris) operate as a defence by excluding intention (mens rea)?

Judgment. The Appellate Division held that ignorance of the law can be a valid defence excluding intent, overruling the old maxim. On the facts, given her circumstances, the court found she could not genuinely have been unaware of the regulations.

Significance. A landmark decision: it abolished the presumption that everyone knows the law and established that awareness of unlawfulness is part of intention.

Exam tip. Use De Blom for mistake of law negating intention through absence of knowledge of unlawfulness. Pair it with the rule that intention requires knowledge of all the elements plus unlawfulness.

Facts. The accused drove a vehicle that was involved in a fatal accident. The question was whether the standard for negligence in culpable homicide required subjective foresight or an objective test.

Legal question. What is the correct test for negligence (culpa) in South African criminal law?

Judgment. The Appellate Division confirmed the objective bonus paterfamilias standard for criminal negligence. The accused's subjective appreciation is irrelevant to the negligence enquiry — it is what a reasonable person would have done that matters.

Significance. The definitive statement of the three-step negligence test in SA criminal law. This is the test for culpable homicide and any other crime requiring culpa. The test is always objective — measured against the reasonable person, not the accused's actual beliefs.

Exam tip. Memorise the three-step test: (1) would a reasonable person have foreseen? (2) would a reasonable person have taken precautions? (3) did the accused fail? All three must be satisfied. Contrast with dolus eventualis: negligence asks "should have foreseen"; dolus eventualis asks "did foresee and proceed regardless".

Facts. After police arrested a man at night, several of his small children scattered into the cold and dark. The police made a limited search but failed to find one child, who later died of exposure. They were charged with culpable homicide for the death.

Legal question. Were the police negligent — would a reasonable person have foreseen the possibility of the child's death and taken steps to prevent it — so as to be liable for culpable homicide by omission?

Judgment. The Appellate Division held that, although the police ought to have searched further, the child's death from exposure was not reasonably foreseeable on the facts, so negligence in respect of the death was not established and the culpable-homicide conviction could not stand.

Significance. A leading authority on reasonable foreseeability in negligence and on culpable homicide by omission. Often paired with Ngubane on the negligence test.

Exam tip. Use Van As for the reasonable-foreseeability requirement: the death itself — not merely some harm — must be reasonably foreseeable. Separate the factual duty to act from foreseeability of the fatal result.

Facts. A sixteen-year-old accused asked his brother to chase cattle off the road. When the brother refused, he grabbed a handful of gravel and threw it at his brother. A car came round a bend at that moment and the gravel cracked its windscreen. He was convicted of malicious injury to property on the basis of dolus eventualis.

Legal question. Could intention in the form of dolus eventualis be inferred, and may a court presume that an accused foresaw the probable consequences of his act?

Judgment. The Natal Provincial Division held that the magistrate had misdirected himself by presuming foresight and requiring the accused to disprove it, and that it could not reasonably be said that the accused had foreseen damage to a car. The conviction was set aside.

Significance. An early and often-cited rejection of any objective or presumptive route to intention. It fixes the subjective test for dolus eventualis and places the onus squarely on the State, a position later carried through in cases such as S v Humphreys.

Exam tip. Cite Mnyandu at 605 for the proposition that dolus eventualis is measured by what this accused actually foresaw, never by what a reasonable person would have foreseen, and that there is no presumption of foresight. Watch the spelling: the reported name is Mnyandu, not Mnyanda.

Facts. The deceased found her husband at a restaurant with the appellant, who was his lover. She assaulted the appellant, smashed the husband's windscreen, then returned and struck the appellant over the head with an ashtray and dragged her to the ground by her hair. The appellant stabbed her once with a steak knife in the upper chest, penetrating the lung and a major vein, and the deceased died.

Legal question. Does foresight that a stab to the upper body might cause death, without more, establish intention in the form of dolus eventualis?

Judgment. The Supreme Court of Appeal held that the appellant must have foreseen that directing a knife at the deceased's upper body might injure or kill her, but that there was no proof she reconciled herself with death occurring; the murder conviction and 12 years' imprisonment were replaced with culpable homicide and three years under section 276(1)(i) of the Criminal Procedure Act 51 of 1977.

Significance. A clear modern application of the volitional leg of dolus eventualis, especially where the accused acts in a sudden and frightening attack upon her.

Exam tip. Always split dolus eventualis into foresight and reconciliation and argue each separately; the second leg is where marks are won. Compare S v Humphreys and S v Pistorius on the same distinction.

Facts. The "Sharpeville Six." During township unrest, a crowd attacked the home of the deputy mayor of Lekoa, stoned him, set his house alight and killed him. Six accused were convicted of murder on the basis of common purpose, although it could not be proved which individual act actually caused the death.

Legal question. Must the State prove that each participant's own conduct causally contributed to the death, or does the doctrine of common purpose impute the conduct of the group to each participant who shares the purpose?

Judgment. The Appellate Division upheld the murder convictions, holding that proof of individual causation is not required where common purpose is established. Each participant is liable for the killing as if the act were his own.

Significance. The leading authority affirming the doctrine of common purpose and that individual causation need not be proved. Controversial as an apartheid-era decision, its constitutionality was later confirmed in Thebus.

Exam tip. Common purpose removes the need to prove who struck the fatal blow. Distinguish the prior-agreement (mandate) form from the active-association form (Mgedezi), and watch the timing limit set by Motaung.

Facts. Mineworkers attacked and killed members of mine management during a labour dispute. Several accused were convicted on common purpose despite no proven prior agreement to kill. The court had to set out when liability arises through active association alone.

Legal question. What must be proved to convict an accused on common purpose where there was no prior agreement (mandate) to commit the crime?

Judgment. The Appellate Division laid down the five requirements for common purpose by active association — the "Mgedezi requirements."

Significance. The definitive statement of the requirements for active-association common purpose, applied in every common-purpose case since.

Exam tip. Memorise the five Mgedezi requirements: presence, awareness, intent to make common cause, an act of association, and mens rea. Apply each to the facts in turn.

Facts. During a mob killing the question arose whether an accused who associated himself with the assault only after the deceased had already been fatally (mortally) wounded could be convicted of murder on common purpose.

Legal question. Can a participant who joins the common purpose only after the victim has already received the fatal injury be convicted of murder on that basis?

Judgment. The Appellate Division held that the moment of association relative to the infliction of the fatal wound is decisive; association only after the mortal wound cannot found a murder conviction on common purpose.

Significance. Refines Safatsa and Mgedezi by fixing the temporal limit of common-purpose liability — association must precede the fatal wound.

Exam tip. Timing matters: if the accused associated only after the deceased was already fatally injured, common-purpose murder fails. Read alongside Safatsa (imputation) and Mgedezi (requirements).

Facts. During a confrontation in a community-policing incident, shots were fired; a child was killed and others wounded. The accused were convicted on common purpose (active association) and challenged the constitutionality of the doctrine.

Legal question. Is the doctrine of common purpose, in its active-association form, consistent with the Constitution — in particular the rights to dignity, freedom and the presumption of innocence?

Judgment. The Constitutional Court upheld the constitutionality of the common-purpose doctrine and dismissed the challenge.

Significance. The modern constitutional foundation of common purpose — it confirms that Safatsa and Mgedezi survive constitutional scrutiny. The Court also discussed withdrawal/dissociation from a common purpose.

Exam tip. Use Thebus to answer "is common purpose constitutional?" Note its discussion of dissociation — effective withdrawal must occur before the crime and be a clear, unequivocal act of disengagement.

Facts. Accused were charged in connection with a planned killing, raising the relationship between liability as a conspirator and liability under the common-purpose doctrine.

Legal question. Can a conspirator whose plan is carried out be convicted as a co-perpetrator without invoking common purpose?

Judgment. The Northern Cape court held that a conspirator whose conspiracy is executed may be convicted as a co-perpetrator, without recourse to common purpose.

Significance. A provincial division decision — persuasive, not binding — but a practically useful one: it shows that where a prior agreement is proved and carried out, the State need not run the common-purpose argument at all. It was followed on exactly this point in Mmotla v S [2024] ZAGPPHC 362 at para [30].

Exam tip. Use Nooroodien for one narrow point: an executed conspiracy can ground co-perpetrator liability directly. Note its weight — a Northern Cape provincial judgment, persuasive only. For the requirements of common purpose itself go to Mgedezi (and Thebus for its constitutionality); Nooroodien is not authority for those.

Facts. The accused was charged in connection with an attempt to commit arson. The court had to decide when conduct crosses from non-punishable preparation into a punishable attempt.

Legal question. What distinguishes a punishable criminal attempt from mere (non-punishable) acts of preparation?

Judgment. The Appellate Division analysed attempt through the completed/uncompleted distinction and the line between preparation and commencement of execution.

Significance. The foundational South African authority on the crime of attempt and the preparation-versus-execution boundary that determines when liability for attempt arises.

Exam tip. Use Schoombie for the structure of attempt: completed vs uncompleted attempts, and the preparation/commencement-of-execution line. Voluntary withdrawal can be a defence only in an uncompleted attempt, before the crime is consummated.

Facts. Julius Malema, leader of the EFF, was charged under section 18(2)(b) of the Riotous Assemblies Act 17 of 1956 for inciting EFF supporters and others to occupy land they did not own, without lawful permission. The EFF challenged the constitutionality of the incitement offence as a violation of the right to freedom of expression.

Legal question. Is the crime of incitement in section 18(2)(b) of the Riotous Assemblies Act — which criminalises inciting any person to commit "any offence" — consistent with the right to freedom of expression in section 16 of the Constitution?

Judgment. The Constitutional Court declared section 18(2)(b) inconsistent with section 16(1) of the Constitution to the extent of its overbreadth, and cured the defect by reading in the word "serious" (so the crime reaches incitement to commit any "serious" offence). The declaration of invalidity was suspended for 24 months to allow Parliament to correct it.

Significance. The leading modern authority on the crime of incitement and its constitutional limits. It confirms that incitement remains a crime but narrows it to serious offences, balancing the offence against freedom of expression.

Exam tip. Use the EFF case for the inchoate crime of incitement and its constitutional limits. Remember the remedy: the court read in "serious" — inciting a trivial offence is no longer criminal, but inciting a serious offence remains punishable.

Facts. After the February 1988 coup attempt in Bophuthatswana, in which President Mangope was briefly deposed before South African forces restored him, members of the Bophuthatswana Defence Force and of the banned People's Progressive Party were tried for high treason before the Bophuthatswana General Division. An earlier judgment in the same trial had already decided that Bophuthatswana was a State capable of being the object of treason; the main judgment of Friedman J dealt with the requirements of the crime and the defences raised, including the soldiers' plea that they had merely obeyed the orders of superiors.

Legal question. What must the State prove to establish high treason, and in particular what is the content of the hostile intent requirement — does the accused's motive matter?

Judgment. Friedman J convicted the coup participants of high treason, holding that the hostile intent requirement was satisfied and that the plea of obedience to superior orders could not avail soldiers who took part in an unlawful seizure of the government.

Significance. The leading modern South African exposition of high treason, and the source of the definition now generally used. It settles that hostile intent is a knowledge-based test satisfied by any form of dolus, that motive is irrelevant, and it contains the fullest local discussion of obedience to orders as a ground of justification.

Exam tip. Do not confuse motive with intention: an accused who says he acted to save the economy or to end corruption still has hostile intent if he knew his conduct would endanger the State. Remember that a coup attempt is the paradigm case of treason, and that the statehood point was decided in the earlier ruling in the same trial.

Facts. The accused organised and instigated a large group of people to attend a political meeting. Unknown to the rest of the group, they planned to use its numbers to force the election of a new chairman and so take over the meeting, by force if necessary. When the conveners refused, the accused led the crowd in seizing the speakers' platform by force.

Legal question. What does the crime of public violence require, and must the State prove exactly which acts of violence each participant in the crowd committed?

Judgment. The court treated those who knowingly associated themselves with the violent disturbance as parties to it, so that the organisers and participants were liable for the violence of the crowd without individual acts having to be attributed to each of them.

Significance. Still the standard authority on the concerted-action element of public violence, cited in S v Safatsa at 289 and 297 alongside R v Cele 1958 (1) SA 144 (N) for the proposition that being in the forefront of a stone-throwing mob makes a person a party to the common purpose.

Exam tip. Remember the numbers requirement: a single rioter cannot be convicted of public violence, so charge assault or malicious damage instead. Watch for improper duplication of convictions where the same conduct also founds another charge, as happened in S v Safatsa.

Facts. Mamabolo, a spokesperson for the Department of Correctional Services, was quoted in the press saying that a High Court judge had erred in granting bail to a right-wing leader. The judge summoned him, questioned him and convicted him of contempt of court on the spot.

Legal question. Is the crime of scandalising the court a justifiable limit on freedom of expression, and may it be punished by summary procedure?

Judgment. The Constitutional Court set aside the conviction and sentence, holding both that the summary procedure was unconstitutional and that what Mamabolo had said did not amount to contempt.

Significance. Reshaped contempt of court for the constitutional era, narrowing the crime and stripping judges of the power to try out-of-court criticism of themselves summarily.

Exam tip. Kriegler J stressed that courts have no special immunity from criticism. Pair with S v Lavhengwa to show the divide between contempt in facie curiae and ex facie curiae.

Facts. Lavhengwa was convicted by a magistrate under the summary procedure in section 108(1) of the Magistrates Courts Act 32 of 1944 for contempt committed in facie curiae, and attacked both the crime and the procedure as unconstitutional.

Legal question. Is the common-law crime of contempt of court, and the summary procedure used to punish contempt in the face of the court, consistent with the right to a fair trial?

Judgment. Claassen J held that the crime and the summary procedure survive constitutional scrutiny, and that flagrant disobedience of a court order in the face of the court, especially by a legal practitioner, calls for an immediate response to restore order.

Significance. The leading South African statement on the constitutionality of summary contempt in facie curiae, and a much-cited authority on the vagueness or clarity test for criminal prohibitions.

Exam tip. Use Lavhengwa for contempt inside the courtroom and for the clarity-of-definition point. Contrast S v Mamabolo, where summary procedure was rejected for contempt committed outside court.

Facts. Barend van Niekerk, a law academic, addressed a public meeting in Durban while a terrorism trial was under way in Pietermaritzburg. He attacked section 6 of the Terrorism Act and urged the courts not to admit the evidence of witnesses held in detention under it, because such witnesses were likely to have been tortured or coerced and their evidence was therefore highly suspect. He was convicted of contempt of court in the Durban and Coast Local Division.

Legal question. Did a public exhortation to judges to refuse to act on evidence obtained from detainees amount to contempt of court, and did the same conduct also establish an attempt to defeat or obstruct the course of justice?

Judgment. The Appellate Division held that the appellant had rightly been convicted of contempt of court, and on the question of law reserved by the State held that the intent required for attempting to defeat or obstruct the course of justice had likewise been established.

Significance. The high-water mark of apartheid-era contempt law, showing how broadly the crime was used against critics of the courts and of security legislation. Contrast S v Mamabolo, where the Constitutional Court narrowed scandalising the court and insisted that criticism be tolerated unless it really threatens the administration of justice.

Exam tip. Do not confuse contempt in facie curiae with this form, which is committed outside court by speech or writing. Use Van Niekerk as the pre-constitutional benchmark and Mamabolo as the constitutional correction.

Facts. After the murder of a baby in Cape Town, e-TV made a documentary containing interviews with two eyewitnesses who had given police statements and were to be State witnesses, and scheduled it for broadcast once five suspects had been charged. The Director of Public Prosecutions asked to preview the programme, e-TV refused, and the High Court ordered that the broadcast be restrained until the DPP had been given a copy and time to seek further relief.

Legal question. When may publication about a pending criminal case be prohibited in order to protect the administration of justice?

Judgment. Nugent JA upheld the appeal and set aside the interdict, holding that the DPP had no right to preview the broadcast and that fears about witness discrepancies and witness safety were speculative rather than a real and substantial risk.

Significance. Reformulated the sub judice rule for the constitutional era, replacing the old tendency to prejudice test with a demanding real and substantial risk standard that strongly favours publication.

Exam tip. Quote the two-part test, demonstrable and substantial prejudice plus a real risk, and then ask whether anything less than a ban would work. Contrast S v Mamabolo, which deals with scandalising the court rather than prior restraint.

Facts. Makwanyane and Mchunu were convicted of murder, attempted murder and robbery with aggravating circumstances and sentenced to death. Their appeal reached the newly created Constitutional Court, which was asked whether capital punishment survived the interim Constitution.

Legal question. Is the death sentence for murder, authorised by section 277(1)(a) of the Criminal Procedure Act 51 of 1977, consistent with the Constitution?

Judgment. The Constitutional Court unanimously declared section 277(1)(a) invalid, held that the death sentence was no longer a competent sentence, and ordered that no one already sentenced to death be executed pending substitution of a lawful sentence.

Significance. The Constitutional Court first major judgment and the foundational statement on punishment under the Bill of Rights. It abolished the death penalty in South Africa and set the method for constitutional adjudication of punishment: identify the rights infringed, then test the limitation for justification.

Exam tip. Do not describe the decision as a narrow one on deterrence alone. The ratio rests on the combination of the right to life, human dignity and the prohibition on cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment, plus arbitrariness in application. Note that all eleven judges concurred, each writing separately, with Chaskalson P delivering the main judgment.

Facts. Best paid Mshumpa to shoot his pregnant girlfriend in the abdomen so as to kill their unborn child, and arranged to be shot himself to disguise the plot as a random attack. The mother and Best both survived; the foetus, near full term, died.

Legal question. Can the intentional killing of a foetus in utero amount to murder, and should the courts develop the common law to make it so?

Judgment. The Eastern Cape Division declined to convict of murder in respect of the foetus, but convicted Mshumpa of attempted murder of the mother and of Best, with Best liable as the instigator of the plot.

Significance. The leading South African authority that the born-alive rule survives, and that the criminal law protects the foetus only through crimes against the pregnant woman or statutory regulation of abortion. It is also a strong modern statement of legality as a brake on judicial creation of crimes.

Exam tip. The examinable holding is that the victim of murder must have been born alive, so a foetus of any gestational age cannot be murdered. Add the two supporting points: dolus eventualis towards the mother, and consent as no defence to serious injury.

Facts. Mdau was convicted of assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm, and the conviction came before the Witwatersrand Local Division, which had to decide whether the record showed the particular intent required for the aggravated form of assault rather than merely common assault.

Legal question. How does a court establish that an assault was committed with the specific intent to inflict grievous bodily harm?

Judgment. The court set out the factors that serve as an index to the accused's state of mind and confirmed that the aggravated form of assault turns on proof of that further intent.

Significance. The standard South African authority on how the extra intent in assault GBH is proved, routinely applied by magistrates deciding between common assault and the aggravated charge.

Exam tip. Run the four indicators one by one on the facts you are given. A punch to the face or a twisted arm usually signals common assault; a kick to the head of a person already on the ground, an electric shock or acid to the face signals the aggravated intent.

Facts. A father was convicted in the Johannesburg Magistrates Court of assaulting his 13-year-old son, whom he kicked and punched after discovering that the boy had watched pornographic material; he was separately convicted of assaulting his wife. On appeal to the Gauteng Local Division he relied on the common-law defence of reasonable and moderate parental chastisement.

Legal question. Is the common-law defence of reasonable and moderate parental chastisement, which justifies force by a parent that would otherwise be assault, consistent with the Constitution?

Judgment. The High Court declared the defence of reasonable and moderate chastisement constitutionally invalid and prospectively unavailable to parents charged with assaulting their children. On the facts the violence was in any event far beyond anything moderate, so the defence could not have assisted the father and his conviction stood.

Significance. The decision that ended parental corporal punishment as a defence in Gauteng, and it was upheld by the Constitutional Court in Freedom of Religion South Africa v Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development, which declared the defence inconsistent with sections 10 and 12(1)(c) of the Constitution for the whole country.

Exam tip. Use S v YG for the removal of a ground of justification: the conduct was always assault, what fell away was the excuse. Always pair it with the Constitutional Court confirmation in Freedom of Religion South Africa, which is the binding national authority.

Facts. The accused was a peeping Tom who secretly watched the complainants. They had no idea at the time that they were being observed, and only learned of it afterwards.

Legal question. Can crimen iniuria be committed where the complainant was unaware of the invasion of privacy at the time it occurred?

Judgment. The Cape Provincial Division held that the crime was committed by the peeping, and the accused was convicted of crimen iniuria notwithstanding the complainants' ignorance of what was happening.

Significance. The foundational South African authority that privacy is protected by crimen iniuria and that subjective awareness of the indignity is not always required.

Exam tip. Distinguish two questions: whether the complainant knew (Holliday says this is not essential in privacy cases) and whether the impairment was serious enough (contrast S v Jana). Note that many peeping cases are now charged under sexual offences legislation.

Facts. The accused was prosecuted for crimen iniuria after calling the complainant a pig. The issue was whether that insult crossed the threshold of the crime.

Legal question. How is the impairment of dignitas assessed, and was calling the complainant a pig a serious enough impairment to constitute crimen iniuria?

Judgment. Human J held that calling the complainant a pig was not a sufficiently serious impairment of dignitas to amount to crimen iniuria.

Significance. A standard citation for the double test in crimen iniuria, subjective and objective, and for the seriousness threshold that keeps everyday abuse out of the criminal courts.

Exam tip. Two hurdles in every crimen iniuria answer: did this complainant in fact feel degraded (subjective), and would a reasonable person regard the conduct as a serious impairment of dignity (objective). Compare S v Jana with the racial epithet cases, where seriousness is readily found.

Facts. Hoho, a former parliamentary researcher, distributed pamphlets during 2001 and 2002 accusing the Speaker of the Eastern Cape Legislature, the Premier, members of the Legislature and national ministers of corruption, bribery, embezzlement, sexual misconduct and fraud. The Bisho High Court convicted him on 22 counts of criminal defamation.

Legal question. Does the common law crime of defamation still exist in South African law, and if so, is it consistent with the constitutional right to freedom of expression?

Judgment. The Supreme Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, holding that the crime of defamation survives and passes constitutional muster, and that this was precisely the kind of sustained, malicious campaign that warranted a criminal prosecution.

Significance. The definitive modern statement on criminal defamation, and now largely of historical interest: the common law crime of defamation was repealed by the Judicial Matters Amendment Act 15 of 2023, which came into operation in April 2024. Crimen iniuria and the civil action for defamation are untouched.

Exam tip. Use Hoho to explain why the crime survived constitutional scrutiny, then note that Parliament has since abolished it. Keep defamation (reputation) apart from crimen iniuria (dignity and privacy).

Facts. A senior Sowetan journalist published an article alleging that a magistrate had imposed a heavier sentence on a black accused than on a white accused for the same offence. The allegation was false; he had relied on a lawyer contact to interpret Afrikaans court records without verifying them, and was convicted of criminal defamation.

Legal question. Was intentional publication proved, and is the common-law crime of criminal defamation constitutional when applied to members of the media?

Judgment. The full bench upheld the appeal and set aside the conviction, the State having failed to prove intention. It nevertheless dismissed the argument of the amici and held that criminal defamation, including as it applies to the media, is a reasonable and justifiable limitation of freedom of expression under section 36.

Significance. The leading modern authority on the fault element of criminal defamation and on its constitutionality as applied to journalists. It confirms S v Hoho while showing that the intention requirement, not decriminalisation, is what protects honest but careless reporting.

Exam tip. Two separate points, and examiners test both: the conviction fell on intention (negligence and recklessness are not dolus), while the crime itself survived constitutional attack. Do not say the court decriminalised media defamation.

Facts. A woman gave in to a policeman's demand for sexual intercourse. He made no threat, but she believed that he had the power to harm her because of the office he held, and she acquiesced for that reason.

Legal question. Is apparent consent valid where the complainant submits out of fear of a person's power to harm her, in the absence of any threat or violence?

Judgment. The Appellate Division held that the complainant's apparent consent was invalid because it was induced by her apprehension of the accused's power to harm her.

Significance. An early recognition that abuse of power or authority vitiates consent, a principle now codified in the coercive circumstances listed in the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences and Related Matters) Amendment Act 32 of 2007.

Exam tip. Use it with S v Volschenk, where a policeman's threat to lay a charge vitiated consent, to show the spectrum from express threat to bare imbalance of power. The exam line is that every consent involves submission, but not every submission involves consent.

Facts. Jezile took a 14-year-old girl from her Eastern Cape village as his wife under a claimed ukuthwala custom, brought her to Cape Town, assaulted her, raped her repeatedly and confined her when he went out. She escaped, was returned to him by a relative, and eventually got away. He was convicted of human trafficking, rape and assault and sentenced to 22 years imprisonment.

Legal question. Can the customary practice of ukuthwala serve as a defence, or justify the conduct, on charges of rape, trafficking and assault where the complainant is an unconsenting child?

Judgment. A full bench of the Western Cape Division dismissed the appeal and confirmed the convictions and sentence, rejecting the ukuthwala cultural defence outright.

Significance. The leading judgment on the so-called cultural defence in South African criminal law and on forced and child marriage, holding that custom cannot shield rape, trafficking or assault.

Exam tip. Do not treat ukuthwala as a ground of justification. The argument fails on both consent and unlawfulness, and the court stressed that the girl was a minor who resisted throughout.

Facts. Sections 15 and 16 of the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences and Related Matters) Amendment Act 32 of 2007 criminalised consensual sexual conduct, including kissing and petting, between adolescents. Two child-protection organisations challenged those provisions, and the North Gauteng High Court declared them invalid, sending the order to the Constitutional Court for confirmation.

Legal question. May the criminal law be used to punish children under 16 for consensual sexual conduct with one another in order to deter early sexual activity?

Judgment. The Constitutional Court (per Khampepe J, unanimous) confirmed the invalidity of sections 15 and 16 to the extent that they imposed criminal liability on children under 16, suspended the declaration for 18 months, imposed an immediate moratorium on investigations and prosecutions, and ordered expungement of existing convictions, diversion orders and sex-offender register entries.

Significance. The leading authority on the limits of criminalisation where children are concerned, and the reason Parliament amended the Sexual Offences Act by Act 5 of 2015 to decriminalise consensual adolescent sexual conduct.

Exam tip. Do not overstate the holding: the age of consent was not struck down, only the criminalisation of under-16s for consensual conduct. Note the remedial package (suspension plus moratorium plus expungement) as a model just-and-equitable order under section 172(1)(b).

Facts. The appellant sat naked masturbating in a flat while a domestic worker, supplied to him for the day by an agency and whom he had met that morning, was cleaning the room. He asked her to help him, she refused, and he carried on, eventually moving to the bathroom but leaving the door open in her full view.

Legal question. Does a complainant who does not leave or object consent, for the purposes of section 8(3) of the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences and Related Matters) Amendment Act 32 of 2007, to witnessing an act of self-masturbation?

Judgment. The appeal was dismissed and the conviction confirmed: the appellant had abused his position of power over the complainant and the State had proved the offence beyond reasonable doubt.

Significance. Shows that the coercive circumstances listed in Act 32 of 2007 do real work, and that consent in sexual offences is assessed against the power relationship between the parties rather than the complainant's outward passivity.

Exam tip. Do not equate silence or failure to flee with consent. Point to the statutory list of coercive circumstances and identify the power imbalance, here employer over domestic worker.

Facts. The appellant, a married woman working as a temporary educator, offered counselling sessions to a boy under 16 at the school where he was a learner and committed an act of sexual penetration with him to which he apparently consented. She was convicted under section 15(1) of the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences and Related Matters) Amendment Act 32 of 2007 and sentenced to four years' imprisonment.

Legal question. Should a female offender who has consensual sexual penetration with a child under 16 in a position of trust receive correctional supervision rather than imprisonment?

Judgment. The North West High Court, Mafikeng dismissed the appeal against both conviction and sentence, upholding the four years' imprisonment.

Significance. A reminder that statutory rape provisions are gender-neutral and that female offenders in positions of trust over children are not treated more leniently.

Exam tip. Apparent consent is irrelevant under section 15, so do not analyse it as a defence; discuss the abuse of a position of trust instead. Remember that Teddy Bear Clinic struck down section 15 only in respect of consensual acts between adolescents themselves.

Facts. The accused faced a charge of abduction in the Cape Provincial Division, which took the opportunity to set out the elements of the crime in full.

Legal question. What must the State prove for the common law crime of abduction?

Judgment. The court applied that definition of abduction, and the formulation has been treated ever since as the standard statement of the crime.

Significance. The case courts and writers cite for the definition of abduction, followed for example by the Namibian Supreme Court in S v Teek and adopted in Hunt and Milton and in Snyman.

Exam tip. Remember whose right is infringed: abduction is committed against the custodian, so a willing minor does not help the accused. Keep it apart from kidnapping, which is about deprivation of liberty.

Facts. An accused was convicted of bestiality in the magistrates court at Heilbron on eyewitness evidence. Before sentence the magistrate referred the matter to the High Court on special review, believing that the crime could not survive the Constitution.

Legal question. Does the common-law crime of bestiality unjustifiably limit the rights to equality, freedom and security of the person, and privacy?

Judgment. Wright J held that the crime of bestiality is not unconstitutional, refused to disturb the conviction, and referred the matter back to the magistrate for sentence.

Significance. The only reported constitutional challenge to bestiality in South African law, and a rejection of Snyman's argument that the crime lacks a convincing rationale and should fall.

Exam tip. The reasoning is a model of the two-stage Bill of Rights enquiry, so use it to show limitation analysis under section 36 applied to a common-law crime. Also reported at 2004 (1) BCLR 97 (O) and 2004 (3) SA 680 (O).

Facts. The Cape Provincial Division had to decide whether a person who unlawfully draws and consumes electricity commits theft, or whether electricity falls outside the class of things that can be stolen.

Legal question. Is electricity a thing capable of being stolen for the purposes of the common-law crime of theft?

Judgment. The court held that electricity is energy and that energy is incapable of theft, so a charge of stealing electricity could not be sustained at common law.

Significance. For years the leading authority that electricity cannot be stolen, and the reason municipalities and Eskom prosecute meter tampering under statute and by-laws. Its reasoning was strongly criticised and departed from in S v Ndebele, where the court held that electricity can be stolen because the accused appropriates a characteristic attaching to a thing.

Exam tip. Use Mintoor as the classic statement of the corporeality requirement in theft, then immediately flag S v Ndebele as the counterweight. Examiners like the tension: Mintoor asks what electricity is, Ndebele asks what appropriation is.

Facts. Three accused were charged with a very large number of counts of theft arising out of the manipulation of prepaid electricity vending machines, or credit dispensing units, which generate the tokens that release electricity credit to consumers. At the start of the trial the defence applied to quash the counts on the ground that electricity is not a thing capable of being stolen.

Legal question. Can electricity, and electricity credit generated by a prepaid vending system, be the subject of theft?

Judgment. The application to quash was refused: electricity is capable of being stolen, and the trial proceeded, ending in the conviction of two of the three accused.

Significance. The leading South African authority that electricity can be stolen, and a marker of how far the courts have moved from a physical contrectatio towards an abstract notion of appropriation.

Exam tip. Use Ndebele whenever a question asks whether an intangible can be stolen. Pair it with the argument that stretching theft this far sits uneasily with the principle of legality, which is the main academic criticism of the decision.

Facts. The appellant was convicted of theft of cattle under the Stock Theft Act 57 of 1959. The cattle were never loaded onto the vehicle and never left the camp, because the vehicle got stuck in the mud and could not be pushed out, whereupon the appellant abandoned the enterprise.

Legal question. At what point does interference with another person's property cross the line from attempted theft to completed theft?

Judgment. The conviction of theft was set aside and replaced with a conviction of attempted theft.

Significance. A practical illustration of the thin line between theft and attempt, and a reminder that the completed crime demands appropriation, not merely a beginning of execution.

Exam tip. In problem questions, ask exactly what the accused did to the property. If the goods were never moved or taken out of the owner's control, argue attempted theft and cite Nkosi.

Facts. A father and son grew sugarcane on a farm riparian to the Lomati River and abstracted water for irrigation. They were charged with fraud for reporting false meter readings to the irrigation board over several years, with theft of the water in the alternative, and with statutory offences under the National Water Act 36 of 1998.

Legal question. Is the State confined to the statutory offences created by the National Water Act, and can water flowing in a public stream be stolen?

Judgment. The Supreme Court of Appeal restored the fraud conviction, holding that the common-law charge was competent, and upheld the convictions under section 151 of the 1998 Act while reducing sentence. It expressed the prima facie view that water in a stream cannot be stolen, but did not finally decide the point because the theft charge failed on the facts.

Significance. The leading authority on whether statutory regulation excludes common-law prosecution, and the modern statement that public water remains res communes. Read with S v Mintoor, it maps the outer limits of what counts as a stealable thing.

Exam tip. Be precise: the theft point is a prima facie view, not a binding ratio, because the theft charge collapsed on the evidence. The firm holding is that the National Water Act does not exclude prosecution for fraud or other common-law crimes.

Facts. The accused unlawfully obtained or retained four microscopes in Botswana and then removed them to Windhoek in South West Africa, his motive being to use them as leverage to persuade the Botswana authorities to withdraw criminal charges against him. He was convicted of theft in a magistrates court in Windhoek.

Legal question. Could the accused be convicted of theft within the trial court's jurisdiction when the original taking happened in another country, and did the State first have to prove that his conduct amounted to theft under the law of that country?

Judgment. The Appellate Division (per Jansen JA) upheld the conviction: because the appellant handled the microscopes invito domino within the trial court's area with the required intention, his conduct there was itself theft, applying R v Von Elling 1945 AD 234.

Significance. The modern authority for theft as a continuing offence and for the jurisdictional consequences in bringing-in cases. It was explained and applied in S v Kruger 1989, where cattle stolen in Bophuthatswana and driven into the Republic could be prosecuted here.

Exam tip. Use Van Coller for two linked points: theft continues as long as the appropriation continues, and jurisdiction therefore follows the goods. Remember that the motive (leverage over the Botswana authorities) did not save him, because motive is not intention.

Facts. The accused helped himself to the complainant's liquor in the complainant's absence, believing that the complainant would have had no objection to his doing so.

Legal question. Does an accused who appropriates another person's property believing that the owner would not object have the intention required for theft?

Judgment. The taking was held not to have been accompanied by an unlawful intention, and the accused was accordingly not guilty of theft.

Significance. An early and durable illustration that knowledge of unlawfulness is a component of intention in theft, so that putative consent by the owner defeats the charge.

Exam tip. Where the accused says the owner would not have minded, deal with it as an absence of knowledge of unlawfulness rather than as consent. Reasonableness goes only to whether the court believes him.

Facts. All that the accused actually broke into was an enclosed yard. They were charged on the footing that this amounted to housebreaking with intent to commit a crime.

Legal question. Is an enclosed yard premises that can be broken into for the purposes of the crime of housebreaking?

Judgment. The court held that breaking into an enclosed yard does not constitute housebreaking, so the housebreaking element of the charge could not be sustained.

Significance. The standard citation for the proposition that a yard is not premises, and a much quoted judicial criticism of the artificiality of the housebreaking rules, including the formulation with intent to commit a crime unknown to the prosecutor.

Exam tip. Identify the structure first. If it is a yard, a fowl run or a wardrobe there is no housebreaking, only the underlying crime such as theft. Contrast S v Temmers, which rejects the movable and immovable distinction for storage structures.

Facts. The accused smeared paint on two public statues. Nothing was broken and the statues were not permanently ruined, but the municipality had to spend money (some eleven pounds) to have the paint removed and the statues restored to their original condition.

Legal question. Is property damaged for the purposes of malicious injury to property where it is merely disfigured, and can be fully restored, provided the owner must spend money and effort on the restoration?

Judgment. The Transvaal Provincial Division held that the defacement amounted to damage because the owner had to pay to have the statues cleaned and restored, and the conviction for malicious injury to property stood.

Significance. The standard authority on what counts as damage in malicious injury to property, routinely cited for graffiti, paint and defacement cases where nothing is physically broken.

Exam tip. If the owner has to open his wallet to undo what the accused did, that is damage. Do not be drawn into arguing that the property must be permanently ruined or rendered useless.

Facts. The accused falsely represented to a man named Potgieter that certain stones were diamonds, in order to induce him to buy them. Potgieter had in fact tipped off the police and never intended to buy anything, so the accused were arrested the moment the stones changed hands.

Legal question. Can there be a conviction for fraud where the person to whom the misrepresentation was made never intended to act on it and so was never actually deceived or prejudiced?

Judgment. On a question of law reserved by the State, the Appellate Division held that fraud was committed: the misrepresentation was inherently capable of deceiving, and the fact that this particular representee was forewarned did not save the accused.

Significance. The leading authority that fraud is complete on potential prejudice, which is why police trap and sting operations do not defeat a fraud charge.

Exam tip. Never say fraud fails because nobody was actually taken in. Ask instead whether the lie was of a kind that could deceive an ordinary person, and remember potential prejudice suffices.

Facts. Larkins told a lender that his salary for the month would be paid into his banking account at the end of the month, and on the strength of that the lender advanced him money. He did not mention that he had already ceded his entire salary for that month to someone else.

Legal question. Can a misrepresentation for the purposes of fraud be made by silence, where the accused fails to disclose a fact that would destroy the impression he has created?

Judgment. The Appellate Division upheld the conviction for fraud: by telling only half the story about his salary and staying silent about the cession, the accused misrepresented the true position.

Significance. The standard authority on misrepresentation by omission or non-disclosure in fraud, and on the duty to correct an impression the accused himself created.

Exam tip. Watch for half-truths. Larkins told the truth about his salary and lied by leaving out the cession, so use it whenever the accused says he never actually stated anything false.

Facts. Between 1995 and 2002 Schabir Shaik and his companies made 238 payments to or for the benefit of Jacob Zuma, then MEC for Economic Affairs in KwaZulu-Natal and later Deputy President, while Zuma intervened on Shaik's behalf in his business affairs. Shaik was charged with corruption under section 1(1)(a) of the Corruption Act 94 of 1992 and with fraud.

Legal question. Must the State prove an express agreement or a specific quid pro quo for each payment before a benefit given to a public official amounts to corruption?

Judgment. The Durban High Court convicted Shaik on two counts of corruption and one of fraud and imposed an effective 15 years' imprisonment; the Supreme Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, holding that the convictions and sentence were correct.

Significance. The leading South African authority on inferring corrupt intent from a pattern of payments, and the factual foundation for a decade of litigation about the prosecution of Jacob Zuma.

Exam tip. The examinable point is evidential: corruption does not require a proven bargain, so build the inference from the pattern, the dependence created and the benefits flowing back. Note that the Corruption Act 94 of 1992 has since been replaced by the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act 12 of 2004.

Facts. Jackie Selebi, the National Commissioner of Police and former head of Interpol, received money and other benefits from the businessman Glenn Agliotti while passing him confidential information and shielding him from police attention. He was convicted of corruption and sentenced to 15 years imprisonment.

Legal question. What must the State prove to convict a public official as the recipient of a gratification under section 4(1)(a) of the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act 12 of 2004?

Judgment. The Supreme Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal and confirmed both the conviction of corruption and the finding that the State had proved its case beyond reasonable doubt.

Significance. The leading modern statement of the elements of corruption by a recipient under the 2004 Act, and a demonstration that no office is high enough to escape it.

Exam tip. Always separate the gratification from the quid pro quo when answering a corruption question. Selebi shows that the return favour need not be a single identified act; a general readiness to abuse the office is enough.

Facts. Garreth Prince and others attacked the blanket criminalisation of cannabis in the Western Cape High Court, arguing that punishing an adult for using, possessing or cultivating cannabis privately for personal consumption invaded the constitutional right to privacy.

Legal question. Is it constitutionally permissible to criminalise the private use, possession and cultivation of cannabis by an adult for personal consumption?

Judgment. The High Court declared the provisions invalid to that limited extent, suspended the declaration for 24 months and granted interim relief; the Constitutional Court confirmed the invalidity on 18 September 2018 and framed the protection around private use and possession by an adult rather than only conduct inside a home.

Significance. The leading example of the Bill of Rights striking down a criminal prohibition, and the source of the current lawful position on adult private cannabis use.

Exam tip. Be precise about what survived: dealing, supplying children and public use are still offences, and the case decriminalises private adult consumption only. Note that the Constitutional Court widened the High Court order from a private dwelling to any private place.

Facts. Kwanda drove a car carrying two men on the way to a planned robbery, and was arrested with them before the robbery could be carried out. One of the passengers had an AK47 rifle; Kwanda never physically held the firearm or its ammunition.

Legal question. Does agreeing to take part in a robbery, knowing that a co-conspirator carries a firearm, make the accused a joint possessor of that firearm?

Judgment. The Supreme Court of Appeal upheld the appeal and set aside the convictions and sentences for contravening sections 32(1)(a) and 32(1)(e) of the Arms and Ammunition Act 75 of 1969.

Significance. Restates the strict approach to joint possession of firearms and blocks the tempting shortcut of converting common purpose to rob into common possession of every weapon carried on the raid.

Exam tip. Keep common purpose and joint possession separate. Common purpose can make all the robbers liable for the robbery while leaving the firearm charge to stick only to the person who actually possessed the weapon.

Facts. The accused was charged with the statutory offence of knowingly and without lawful cause pointing a firearm at another person. The dispute was not whether he had directed the weapon towards the complainant but what the words point at in the section actually require.

Legal question. Is the offence of pointing a firearm committed only where the weapon is aimed so directly at the complainant that a bullet, if fired, would have struck him?

Judgment. Williamson J (Van Deventer J concurring) at 340G-H adopted that restrictive interpretation of the section.

Significance. Van Zyl no longer represents the law. It was rejected in S v Hans 1998 (2) SACR 406 (E) and finally in Xabendlini v S 2011, where the Supreme Court of Appeal held that it is irrelevant whether a bullet would have struck the person, and irrelevant whether the firearm was even loaded or capable of being discharged.

Exam tip. Cite Van Zyl only as the discredited narrow view, and always follow it with Xabendlini for the current wider test. The mischief the section targets is the terror of having a weapon aimed at you, not marksmanship.