CRW2601 EXAM MEMOS .

CRW2601 MAY JUNE 2019 PART A 1. (4) 2. (4) 3. (1) 4. (3) 5. (5) 6. (3) 7. (1) 8. (1) 9. (2) 10.(2) PART B Question 1 (a) (1) A court may find an accused guilty of a crime only if the kind of act performed is recognized by the law as a crime – in other words, a court itself may not create a crime. This is the ius acceptum rule. (2) A court may find an accused guilty of a crime only if the kind of act performed was recognised as a crime at the time of its commission. This is the ius praevium rule. (3) Crimes ought not to be formulated vaguely. This is the ius certum rule. (4) A court must interpret the definition of a crime narrowly rather than broadly. This is the ius strictum rule. (5) After an accused has been found guilty, the above-mentioned four rules must also be applied when it comes to imposing a sentence; this means that the applicable sentence (regarding both form and extent) must already have been determined in reasonably clear terms by the law at the time of the commission of the crime, that a court must interpret the words defining the punishment narrowly rather than broadly, and that a court is not free to Downloaded by Ane Horn () lOMoARcPSD| 4 | P a g e CRW2601 +27 (71) 224 5255 impose any sentence other than the one legally authorized. This is the nulla poena sine lege rule, which can be further abbreviated to the nulla poena rule. (b) For the defence of impossibility to be successful, (1) the legal provision that is infringed must place a positive duty on X (2) it must be objectively impossible for X to comply with the relevant legal provision (3) X must not himself be the cause of the impossibility (c) In YG v S 2018 (1) SACR 64 (GJ), the South Gauteng High Court ruled that the reasonable chastisement defence as currently recognised in the common law is not constitutionally justifiable (at par [85]). X was charged in the regional court with assault to do grievous bodily harm in respect of 13-yearold son, M, as well as of his wife. The two assaults occurred, allegedly, at the family home on the same day. X was convicted on both charges and appealed to the Gauteng High Court on the ground that he was exercising his right as a parent to chastise M by meting out reasonable corporal punishment for M’s indiscipline. X had caught M using one of the family’s IPads and accused M of watching pornographic material. M denied it and when M refused to admit as required by X, he (X) hit him a number of times. X told the court that they are a Muslim family and that pornography was strictly forbidden. The court of appeal (High Court) was of the view that it was in the interests of justice for it to determine the constitutionality of the defense (par [30]) because the constitutional rights implicated are the rights of children, “who are afforded particular protection under the Bill of Rights” (par [28]). The court also emphasized its duty under sections 8(1) and 39(2) to develop the common law in line with the Bill of Rights (par [28]). The court identified the following relevant rights in this matter: the right to human dignity (section 10); the right to equal protection (section 9(3)); the right to be free from violence (section 12(1)(c)); the right not to be punished in a cruel, inhuman or degrading way (section 12(1)(e)); the right of children to be protected from