R v Zuma

• Jurisdiction: South Africa
• Judge: Shaw J, Selke J
• Judgment Date: 19 June 1952
• Citation: 1952 (3) SA 461 (N)
• Hearing Date: 19 June 1952
• Court: Natal Provincial Division

R v Zuma
1952 (3) SA 461 (N)

1952 (3) SA p461

Citation	1952 (3) SA 461 (N)
Court	Natal Provincial Division
Judge	Shaw J, Selke J
Heard	June 19, 1952
Judgment	June 19, 1952

Flynote : Sleutelwoorde

Criminal procedure — Sentence — Offence committed before coming into operation of Act 33 of 1952 but conviction taking place after such date — Provisions of Act in regard to sentences to be applied.

1952 (3) SA p462

Headnote : Kopnota

Where the accused had been charged with an offence committed before the date of the coming into force of Act 33 of 1952 but his conviction had taken place after such date,

Held, that the provisions of the Act in regard to sentences had to be applied. A

Case Information

Review.

Judgment

Selke, J.:

This is an automatic review from the magistrate's court for Umvoti. The accused - a native man of the estimated age of B twenty-five years - was convicted of the offence of robbery, alleged to have been committed on the 19th April, 1952. He was sentenced to serve six months' imprisonment with hard labour, but, as the conviction took place on the 6th June, this sentence appears to be an incompetent one because of Act 33 of 1952, which, it seems, came into C force on the 28th May, 1952, with its promulgation in the Union Gazette Extraordinary of that date, and requires that any male person (other than a person over the age of fifty years), convicted of, inter alia, robbery, shall be sentenced to whipping (not exceeding ten strokes) with or without imprisonment with hard labour. The magistrate who tried the D present case has explained, in reply to a query by the reviewing Judge, that, as he was not clear whether or not Act 33 of 1952 compelled him to inflict corporal punishment in a case where the offence was committed before the promulgation of the Act, he interpreted the Act as leniently as possible and rather in favour, than to the prejudice, of the accused E person. I should be entirely in favour of such an interpretation did I think that the Act gave rise to a reasonable doubt in this relation. As at present advised, however - and I speak without having heard formal argument - I do not think it does; for, whatever doubts there may be about the operation of the Act in other of its aspects, there seems no F reasonable doubt that, where the conviction of the accused takes place after the date on which the Act came into force, the Act...