S v Cooper

• Jurisdiction: South Africa
• Judge: Hiemstra CJ
• Judgment Date: 09 November 1982
• Citation: 1983 (2) SA 178 (B)
• Hearing Date: 09 November 1982
• Court: Bophuthatswana Supreme Court

Hiemstra CJ:

The accused is a young White man who lives in Johannesburg and works as a musician. He visited Sun City and was there found in F possession of five grammes of dagga. [*] He pleaded guilty to a charge of possessing dagga. He was questioned in terms of s 112 of the Criminal Procedure Act and was found guilty.

It appears that he fully co-operated with the police in revealing his source, and he gave evidence in mitigation with complete frankness. He G suffers from a spinal ailment, the existence of which was proved to the satisfaction of the court. Mitigating circumstances are present in a high degree and the magistrate very properly suspended his sentence, which was one of six months' imprisonment.

The reason why this case merits full discussion is that the source of supply revealed by the accused is in the Republic of South Africa, H namely in Durban. This aspect caused some difficulty for the magistrate because the correctness of the information could not readily be checked before sentence. The accused gave full details of his supplier, and from the tenor of his evidence I am satisfied that the magistrate was right in believing him.

The magistrate has however asked for general guidelines in regard to suppliers revealed in the RSA. Act 9 of 1981 contains no qualifications

Hiemstra CH

in regard to the whereabouts of the supplier and, if a court feels that on a balance of probabilities the accused has correctly given his source, then it will be a mitigating factor even though the source is in the RSA. This position could open the door to abuses in that accused persons could all too easily name fictitious suppliers in the RSA.

A The magistrate says the following in his representations to this Court:

"I may however add that in later cases the court has had to rely on information received from the narcotic branch of the police of Phokeng that the accused have in fact revealed their sources in the RSA and that the suspects have been arrested. Warrant...