S v Tsedi

• Jurisdiction: South Africa
• Court: Appellate Division
• Judge: Kotzé JA, Trengove JA and Smuts AJA
• Judgment Date: 21 November 1983
• Citation: 1984 (1) SA 565 (A)
• Hearing Date: 04 November 1983

Kotzé JA:

On 24 July 1981 Abel Tsedi (the applicant) and two other men were convicted by the magistrate of Mooi River in C case 713/80 of dealing in 21½ bags containing 325 kilograms of dagga (valued in the illegitimate market place at R75 000) in contravention of s 2 (a) of Act 41 of 1971 (the Act). The applicant was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment of which one half was suspended on appropriate conditions. An appeal to the D Natal Provincial Division (HOWARD and PAGE JJ) against the conviction was dismissed on 1 December 1981. To this day leave to appeal to this Court has not been obtained. However, such leave not having been applied for within the prescribed time limit, an application for an order condoning the failure to apply for leave to appeal to this Court against the conviction and sentence was enrolled in the Provincial Division, PAGE J E (HURT AJ concurring) held on 2 March 1982 that, although the "failure timeously to apply for leave to appeal" was satisfactorily explained, there were no "real prospects of success on further appeal" and refused the application so far as the conviction was concerned. And in regard to the sentence the application was also refused on the grounds that the long F delay in making the application is insufficiently explained and that reasonable prospects of success are absent. The matter was not allowed to...