R v Chisvo and Others

• Jurisdiction: South Africa
• Judge: Beadle CJ, Macdonald AJP and Jarvis AJA
• Judgment Date: 14 May 1968
• Citation: 1968 (3) SA 353 (RA)
• Hearing Date: 14 May 1968
• Court: Appellate Division

Beadle, C.J.:

The eight appellants in this case were charged in the General Division of the High Court with contravening para. (a) of subsec. (1), as read with para. (a) of sub-sec. (4) of sec. 48A of the Law and Order (Maintenance) Act, Chap. 39, that is, that they with G intent to endanger the maintenance of law and order in Rhodesia were in possession of certain weapons of war. They were duly convicted and as the statute prescribes a mandatory death sentence for a contravention of this section they were sentenced to death.

They now appeal both against conviction and sentence.

H Mr. Taylor, who has appeared for all eight appellants, has stated that he is unable to direct any argument to the Court in respect of any of the appellants with the exception of No. (7) appellant, Ben Manduku.

I will deal, first, with the cases of the seven appellants in respect of whom Mr. Taylor has nothing to say.

[The learned Judge then dealt with the evidence and proceeded.]

In the circumstances, the appeals against both conviction and sentence in respect of these seven appellants must be dismissed.

Beadle CJ

I turn now to the case of the appellant Ben Manduku.

[The learned Judge analysed his evidence and proceeded.]

The appeal against conviction and sentence in his case must, therefore, also be dismissed.

A Before concluding my remarks on this case there is one comment I should like to make on a procedural matter which occurred during the trial. Mr. Taylor was briefed to appear for both the seventh and eighth appellants. When he accepted the brief to appear for both there was nothing inconsistent in the defences of the two appellants. Originally B the defence of both was that they had been compelled to do what they did, and had never had any intention of endangering the preservation of law and order in Rhodesia. They, in fact, both said this in the statements that both of them had made to the police and before the trial started.

C When, however, the eighth appellant was called as a witness in his own defence he suddenly changed his story completely. He said that what he had said before had been untrue and that he had never been in any way compelled to do what he did; he said that he had come freely to Rhodesia as a freedom fighter with every intention of using the weapons in his D possession to fight the Europeans. Furthermore, when cross-examined by the Crown, he gave evidence against the seventh appellant and said that the...