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Double jeopardy is a procedural defence that prevents an accused person from being tried again on the same charges following an acquittal and in rare cases prosecutorial and/or judge misconduct in the same jurisdiction. A variation in civil law countries is the peremptory plea, which may take the specific forms of autrefois acquit or autrefois convict. These doctrines appear to have originated in ancient Roman law, in the broader principle non bis in idem.
A grand jury is a jury—a group of citizens—empowered by law to conduct legal proceedings, investigate potential criminal conduct, and determine whether criminal charges should be brought. A grand jury may subpoena physical evidence or a person to testify. A grand jury is separate from the courts, which do not preside over its functioning.
Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification or valid excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought. This state of mind may, depending upon the jurisdiction, distinguish murder from other forms of unlawful homicide, such as manslaughter. Manslaughter is killing committed in the absence of malice, brought about by reasonable provocation, or diminished capacity. Involuntary manslaughter, where it is recognized, is a killing that lacks all but the most attenuated guilty intent, recklessness.
A statute of limitations, known in civil law systems as a prescriptive period, is a law passed by a legislative body to set the maximum time after an event within which legal proceedings may be initiated. In the United States, a government agency is permitted by the Congress to create under federal regulations its own statute of limitations.
Defamation is the oral or written communication of a false statement about another that unjustly harms their reputation and usually constitutes a tort or crime. In several countries, including South Korea, a true statement can also be considered defamation.
Imprisonment in law is the specific state of being physically incarcerated or confined in an institutional setting such as a prison. When it comes to issues involving a so-called indeterminate sentence, the specific number of days, months or years that had to be served in prison make up the official term of imprisonment. In other words, the months or years of "street time" ordered by a court do not constitute imprisonment.
Gang rape, also called serial gang rape, group rape, or multiple perpetrator rape in scholarly literature, is the rape of a single victim by two or more violators. Gang rapes are forged on shared identity of the same religion, ethnic group, or race. There are multiple motives for serial gang rapes, such as for sexual entitlement, asserting sexual prowess, war, punishment, and, in up to 30% of cases, for targeting another race, ethnic group or religion.
Group Areas Act was the title of three acts of the Parliament of South Africa enacted under the apartheid government of South Africa. The acts assigned racial groups to different residential and business sections in urban areas in a system of urban apartheid. An effect of the law was to exclude people of color from living in the most developed areas, which were restricted to Whites. It required many people of color to commute large distances from their homes to be able to work. The law led to people of color being forcibly removed for living in the "wrong" areas. The majority that was people of color, were given much smaller areas to live in than the white minority who owned most of the country. Pass Laws required people of color to carry pass books and later 'reference books', similar to passports, to enter the 'white' parts of the country.
South Africa has a 'hybrid' or 'mixed' legal system, formed by the interweaving of a number of distinct legal traditions: a civil law system inherited from the Dutch, a common law system inherited from the British, and a customary law system inherited from indigenous Africans. These traditions have had a complex interrelationship, with the English influence most apparent in procedural aspects of the legal system and methods of adjudication, and the Roman-Dutch influence most visible in its substantive private law. As a general rule, South Africa follows English law in both criminal and civil procedure, company law, constitutional law and the law of evidence; while Roman-Dutch common law is followed in the South African contract law, law of delict (tort), law of persons, law of things, family law, etc. With the commencement in 1994 of the interim Constitution, and in 1997 its replacement, the final Constitution, another strand has been added to this weave.
Statistics on rape and other sexual assaults are commonly available in industrialized countries, and are becoming better documented throughout the world. Inconsistent definitions of rape, different rates of reporting, recording, prosecution and conviction for rape create controversial statistical disparities, and lead to accusations that many rape statistics are unreliable or misleading. In some jurisdictions, male-female rape is the only form of rape counted in the statistics. Countries may not define forced sex on a spouse as rape. Rape is an under-reported crime. Prevalence of reasons for not reporting rape differ across countries. They may include fear of retaliation, uncertainty about whether a crime was committed or if the offender intended harm, not wanting others to know about the rape, not wanting the offender to get in trouble, fear of prosecution, and doubt in local law enforcement.
Navanethem "Navi" Pillay is a South African jurist who served as the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2008 to 2014. A South African of Indian Tamil origin, she was the first non-white woman judge of the High Court of South Africa, and she has also served as a judge of the International Criminal Court and President of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Her four-year term as High Commissioner for Human Rights began on 1 September 2008 and was extended an additional two years in 2012. She was succeeded in September 2014 by Prince Zeid bin Ra'ad. In April 2015 Pillay became the 16th Commissioner of the International Commission Against the Death Penalty. She is also one of the 25 leading figures on the Information and Democracy Commission launched by Reporters Without Borders.
Law enforcement in South Africa is primarily the responsibility of the South African Police Service (SAPS), South Africa's national police force. SAPS is responsible for investigating crime and security throughout the country. The "national police force is crucial for the safety of South Africa's citizens" and was established in accordance with the provisions of Section 205 of the Constitution of South Africa.
Jim Crow laws were state and local laws that enforced racial segregation in the Southern United States. Other areas in the United States were also affected by formal and informal policies of segregation, but many states outside the South had adopted laws, beginning in the late nineteenth century, that variously banned discrimination in public accommodations and voting. Southern laws were enacted in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by white Southern Democrat-dominated state legislatures to disenfranchise and remove political and economic gains made by black people during the Reconstruction period. Jim Crow laws were enforced until 1965.
A sodomy law is a law that defines certain sexual acts as crimes. The precise sexual acts meant by the term sodomy are rarely spelled out in the law, but are typically understood by courts to include any sexual act deemed to be unnatural or immoral. Sodomy typically includes anal sex, oral sex, and bestiality. In practice, sodomy laws have rarely been enforced against heterosexual couples, and have mostly been used to target homosexual couples.
The age of consent in the United States is the age at which a person may legally consent to engage in sexual activity. Each state and territory sets the age of consent either by statute or the common law applies, and there are several federal statutes related to protecting minors from sexual predators. Depending on the jurisdiction, the legal age of consent is between 16 and 18. In some places, civil and criminal laws within the same state conflict with each other.
The rate of sexual violence in South Africa is among the highest in the world. Sexual violence is the use of force or manipulation to get someone to engage in unwanted sexual activity without their consent. During 2015/16, there were 51,895 crimes of a sexual nature reported to the South African Police Service.
In S v Ingram, an important case in South African criminal law, the appellant was a 25-year-old first offender who had stabbed the deceased once, in the heart. He expressed genuine remorse for his conduct. His sentence was altered on appeal to five years' imprisonment in terms of section 276(1)(i) of the Criminal Procedure Act.
The National Forensic DNA Database of South Africa (NFDD) is a national DNA database used in law enforcement in South Africa. The Criminal Law Amendment Act No. 37 of 2013 provides for the expansion and administration of such a database in South Africa, enabling the South African Police Service (SAPS) to match forensic DNA profiles derived from samples collected at crime scenes with forensic DNA profiles of offenders convicted of, and suspects arrested for, offences listed in a new Schedule 8 of the amended Criminal Procedure Act of 1977.
While crime in Antarctica is relatively rare, isolation and boredom affect certain people there negatively and may lead to crime. Alcoholism is a known problem on the continent, and has led to fights and indecent exposure. Other types of crimes that have occurred in Antarctica include illicit drug use, torturing and killing wildlife, racing motorbikes through environmentally sensitive areas, assault with a deadly weapon, attempted murder, and arson. Sexual harassment also has been reported.
Capital punishment has been abolished in Seychelles. The country permanently abolished the death penalty by a Constitutional amendment in June 1993.
References
- S v D 1995 (2) SACR 502 (C).
