Provisions
The act criminalises a number of actions. The following two crimes, the most serious under the act, attract a fine of up to R400,000 or imprisonment for up to 10 years. [2]
- Imputing to any other person the causing, by supernatural means, of any disease in or injury or damage to any person or thing, or naming or indicating any other person as a wizard. [3]
- In circumstances indicating that the accused professes or pretends to use any supernatural power, witchcraft, sorcery, enchantment or conjuration, imputing the cause of death of, injury or grief to, disease in, damage to or disappearance of any person or thing to any other person. [4]
If the person in question was killed as a consequence, or if the accused is by habit or repute a witch-finder, the sentence is increased to imprisonment for up to 20 years, [5] and in that case the offence is presumed to have caused the killing unless proven otherwise. [6]
The following three crimes attract a fine of up to R200,000 or imprisonment for up to five years or both. [7]
- Employing or soliciting any witch doctor, witch-finder or any other person to name or indicate any person as a wizard. [8]
- Professing a knowledge of witchcraft, or the use of charms, and advising any person how to bewitch, injure or damage any person or thing, or supplying any person with any pretended means of witchcraft. [9]
- On the advice of any witch doctor, witch-finder or other person or on the ground of any pretended knowledge of witchcraft, using or causing to be put into operation any means or process which, in accordance with such advice or the accused's own belief, is calculated to injure or damage any person or thing. [10]
The following crime attracts a fine of up to R80,000 or imprisonment for up to two years. [11]
- For gain pretending to exercise or use any supernatural power, witchcraft, sorcery, enchantment or conjuration, or undertaking to tell fortunes, or pretending from skill in or knowledge of any occult science to discover where and in what manner anything supposed to have been stolen or lost may be found. [12]
The act also repealed the various witchcraft laws inherited from the colonies from which South Africa was formed. [13]
History
The Witchcraft Suppression Bill was introduced in Parliament in January 1957 by Charles Robberts Swart, the Minister of Justice. It was intended to consolidate the existing laws on witchcraft and to increase the penalties applied. [14] The act was very similar to the Cape Colony's Witchcraft Suppression Act of 1895, which had remained in force in the Cape Province until 1957. [15] In 1970 the act was amended to add one offence and to replace fines denominated in pounds with fines denominated in rand.
Since the end of apartheid in 1994, there have been a number of reviews of the witchcraft legislation. In 1996, the government of the Northern Province appointed a "Commission of Enquiry into Witchcraft Violence and Ritual Murder", also known as the Ralushai Commission after its chairman Professor Victor Ralushai. The commission recommended that the act should be repealed and replaced by a Witchcraft Control Act which would definitely criminalise the actual practise of witchcraft, unlike the current act which focuses on accusations and pretended witchcraft. [16] [17] [18]
In 1998, the Commission for Gender Equality held a "National Conference on Witchcraft Violence", which produced a statement (the "Thohoyandou Declaration on Ending Witchcraft Violence") calling for the repeal of the act and the introduction of new legislation to deal with witchcraft and witch-hunts. [19]
As a consequence of the proposed Mpumalanga Witchcraft Suppression Bill in 2007, both the South African Pagan Rights Alliance (representing Neopagans) and the Traditional Healers Organisation (representing African traditional healers) approached the South African Law Reform Commission (SALRC) for a review of both the Mpumalanga bill and the 1957 act. In 2010, an investigation was approved for inclusion in the SALRC's programme; a discussion paper was published in 2016 and a further revised discussion paper in 2022. The discussion paper proposes that Parliament should repeal the Witchcraft Suppression Act and enact a "Prohibition of Harmful Witchcraft Practices Act" which would prohibit accusations of witchcraft, witch-finding, specific practices of harmful witchcraft, and acts related to muti killing. [20]
The crime of apartheid is defined by the 2002 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court as inhumane acts of a character similar to other crimes against humanity "committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime".
The Witchcraft Acts were historically a succession of governing laws in England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, and the British colonies on penalties for the practice, or—in later years—rather for pretending to practise witchcraft.
Immorality Act was the title of two acts of the Parliament of South Africa which prohibited, amongst other things, sexual relations between white people and people of other races. The first Immorality Act, of 1927, prohibited sex between whites and blacks, until amended in 1950 to prohibit sex between whites and all non-whites. The second Immorality Act, of 1957, continued this prohibition and also dealt with many other sex offences. The ban on interracial sex was lifted in 1985, but certain sections of the 1957 act dealing with prostitution remain in force as the "Sexual Offences Act, 1957".
The Suppression of Communism Act, 1950, renamed the Internal Security Act in 1976, was legislation of the national government in apartheid South Africa which formally banned the Communist Party of South Africa and proscribed any party or group subscribing to communism, according to a uniquely broad definition of the term. It was also used as the basis to place individuals under banning orders, and its practical effect was to isolate and silence voices of dissent.
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. People of colour, who were the majority at the time, 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.
The Offences against the Person Act 1861 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It consolidated provisions related to offences against the person from a number of earlier statutes into a single Act. For the most part these provisions were, according to the draftsman of the Act, incorporated with little or no variation in their phraseology. It is one of a group of Acts sometimes referred to as the Criminal Law Consolidation Acts 1861. It was passed with the object of simplifying the law. It is essentially a revised version of an earlier Consolidation Act, the Offences Against the Person Act 1828, incorporating subsequent statutes.
The system of racial segregation and oppression in South Africa known as apartheid was implemented and enforced by many acts and other laws. This legislation served to institutionalize racial discrimination and the dominance by white people over people of other races. While the bulk of this legislation was enacted after the election of the National Party government in 1948, it was preceded by discriminatory legislation enacted under earlier British and Afrikaner governments. Apartheid is distinguished from segregation in other countries by the systematic way in which it was formalized in law.
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.
In June 2007 the Office of the Premier of the Mpumalanga province in South Africa leaked a draft Mpumalanga Witchcraft Suppression Bill of 2007.
Religion in South Africa is dominated by various branches of Christianity, which collectively represent around 78% of the country's total population.
Prostitution in South Africa is illegal for both buying and selling sex, as well as related activities such as brothel keeping and pimping. However, it remains widespread. Law enforcement is poor.
The Sexual Offences Act, 1957 is an act of the Parliament of South Africa which, in its current form, prohibits prostitution, brothel-keeping and procuring, and other activities related to prostitution. Before the law relating to sex offences was consolidated and revised by the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 2007, it also prohibited various other sex offences, including sex with children under the age of consent and sex with the mentally incompetent. As the Immorality Act it was infamous for prohibiting sex between a white person and a person of another race, until that prohibition was removed by a 1985 amendment.
The Witchcraft Act 1735 was an Act of the Parliament of the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1735 which made it a crime for a person to claim that any human being had magical powers or was guilty of practising witchcraft. With this, the law abolished the hunting and executions of witches in Great Britain. The maximum penalty set out by the Act was a year's imprisonment.
The Coloured Persons Communal Reserves Act of 1961, was an Apartheid South Africa piece of legislation, which was enacted to apply the Mission Stations and Communal Reserves Act 1909, of the Cape of Good Hope, to coloured persons settlement areas within the meaning of the Coloured Persons Settlement Areas (Cape) Act, 1930, to repeal the latter Act and to provide for matters incidental thereto.
According to the Native Administration Act, 1927, the Governor-General of South Africa could "banish" a 'native' or 'tribe' from one area to another whenever he deemed this 'expedient or in the general public interest'.
The Riotous Assemblies Act, Act No 17 of 1956 in South Africa prohibited gatherings in open-air public places if the Minister of Justice considered they could endanger the public peace. Banishment was also included as a form of punishment.
The Indemnity Act no. 13 of 1977 of South Africa was enacted following the suppression of the violence by the South African Police and apartheid supporters during the Soweto uprising on 16 June 1976. This uprising was by the black youths of Soweto protesting against the forced Afrikaans medium decree in schools.
Neopaganism in South Africa is primarily represented by the traditions of Wicca, Neopagan witchcraft, Germanic neopaganism and Neo-Druidism. The movement is related to comparable trends in the United States and Western Europe and is mostly practiced by White South Africans of urban background; it is to be distinguished from folk healing and mythology in local Bantu culture.
South Africa is a secular state, with freedom of religion enshrined in the Constitution.
The Internal Security Act, 1982 was an act of the Parliament of South Africa that consolidated and replaced various earlier pieces of security legislation, including the Suppression of Communism Act, 1950, parts of the Riotous Assemblies Act, 1956, the Unlawful Organizations Act, 1960 and the Terrorism Act, 1967. It gave the apartheid government broad powers to ban or restrict organisations, publications, people and public gatherings, and to detain people without trial. The Act was passed as a consequence of the recommendations of the Rabie Commission, which had enquired into the state of security legislation.
