Comments: A commentary on the principles underpinning the crime of public violence committed by means of threat of violence

• Jurisdiction: South Africa
• Published date: 11 September 2019
• Date: 11 September 2019
• Citation: (2019) 32 SACJ 223
• Pages: 223-244
• Author: Khulekani Khumalo

A commentary on the principles

underpinning the crime of public

violence committed by means of

threat of violence

KHULEKANI KHUMALO

University of KwaZulu-Natal

1 Introduction

Public violence is dened as consisting in the un lawful and intentional

commission by a number of people acting in concert of act s of

sufciently serious dimensions t hat are intended to forcibly disturb the

public peace or security or to invade the rights of others ( J Burchell

Principles of Criminal Law 5ed (2016) 777. See also SV Hoctor ‘Criminal

Law’ in WA Joubert (3ed) The Law of South Africa vol 11 (2017) para

189). This denition is substantially simi lar to that which is also

advanced by Snyman (in CR Snyman Criminal Law 6 ed (2014) 311).

For a recent commentary on the denition and ot her aspects of the

crime, see K Khumalo ‘Towards resuscitating t he ailing public violence

jurisprudence – lessons from histor y’ (2017) 30 SACJ 2 3 - 37. I tis now

trite that even though the denition of public violence employs the

term ‘forcibly’, violence or threat of violence is still required for the

commission o f public violence (S v Mei 1982 (1) SA 299 (O) at 302B).

The requirement of violence or threat of violence has been the legal

position from Roman law where it was recognised that the Roman

equivalent of the crime of public violence could be committed by

means of actual violence or conduct that has the tendency to breed

violence (JRL M ilton South African Criminal Law and Proce dure

vol II: Common Law Crimes 3ed (1996) 77). Roman-Dutch law also

developed along the same lines, with emphasis on the principle that

public violence is committed if the perpet rators use actual violence

or act with the intention of using violence (Milton op cit 78-79). The

current public violence jurisprudence stil l recognises the same.

The meaning of ‘violence’ for purposes of the cr ime of public

violence is discussed extensively in K Khuma lo ‘The meaning of

COMMENT

223

(2019) 32 SACJ 223

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