free to hold public meetings again with the repeal of the "state of emergency" under Proclamation R400. He said that organisations such as the ANC and PAC would remain banned as they were the driving force behind world attitudes to the Transkei.
A Bill making provision for a Transkeian Intelligence Service and a State Security Board has also been passed by the National Assembly. The Intelligence Service and State Security Council Bill was gazetted on 22.7.77 (Transkei Govt. Gazette No. 39)
Prevention of Illegal Squatting Amendment Act. This amendment, gazetted on 3 June 1977, does away with the requirement that a land owner (including a local authority) must give notice of his intention to demolish any building or structure erected on his land without his consent. It also contains retrospective provisions requiring a squatter seeking a court order preventing the demolition of a structure, to prove title or ownership to the land concerned. No court order, judgment or other relief may be sought in a civil court without this being proved as a prerequisite to litigation. The Financial Mail of 22.4.77 commenting on this amendment (under the heading "No place to hide") said: "Government has carefully noted the technical 'shortcomings' of the old Act which resulted in a number of Supreme Court cases in which squatters successfully applied for orders restraining the Minister's bulldozer. By a few substitutions of words and phrases the bill renders access to courts and due process virtually impossible. Technical loop-holes, and uncertainty about ownership of squatter land, which in the past two or three years have seen squatters win reprieve after reprieve in the courts, or in the case of the Stellenbosch and Kraaiifontein squatters, have resulted in a local authority being ordered to re-erect shocks it had demolished, will be a thing of the past when the amendment is enacted". Clearly this new Act paved the way for the demolition of squatters' dwellings at Modderdam.
Lower Courts Amendment Act. This was gazetted on 1 July. The Amendment enables Sabotage and Terrorism Act trials to be held in regional courts whose jurisdiction is drastically increased by this new piece of legislation. Regional courts can now sentence people to R10,000 fines and up to ten years in jail. Sabotage and "terrorism" trials were previously heard exclusively in Supreme Courts, and regional courts were restricted to fines of R1500 or jail sentences of three years. Sentences of magistrates' courts are also increased from six months to twelve months and from R500 to R1000. This law seems primarily aimed at dealing with the large increase in the number of people on trial under the Terrorism Act.
Criminal Procedure Act. Finally gazetted on 6 May, this major Act allows for interrogation of the accused in trial court cases by judges or judicial officers. This Act will also be useful to the State in dealing with the great increase in trials of a political nature in South Africa, as it will "speed up trials and save the accused unnecessary remorse", according to the Minister of Justice, Mr. J.T. Kruger. This Act has already been discussed briefly in FOCUS 9 p. 11, and its effectiveness was demonstrated in the "15 minute trial" under the Terrorism Act in Pietermaritzburg in early August. Among the disturbing provisions of the Act are:
- Clause 115: introduces a new aspect of court procedure by allowing presiding judges or magistrates to question the accused on a post-plea, pre-trial basis. The accused may thus be asked to disclose the basis of his defence before the trial commences.
- Clause 182: states that convicted prisoners may only be subpoenaed as defence witnesses if authorised by the court, which may withhold permission if it considers the evidence is not material to the case, or if public safety and order will be endangered by the witness appearing. (This provision is designed to stop Robben Island prisoners appearing as witnesses in cases involving other liberation movement activities, where part of the prosecution case is based on evidence about past political activities.)
- Clause 105: requires that when an accused person is brought to court he be required to plead immediately (not when the trial actually opens).
- Clause 185: provides for detention of State witnesses incommunicado with no access to legal advice. Detention is ordered on the basis of information supplied by the Attorney-General, (i.e. by the police), but detained witnesses have no right of reply to that information. "Hon. members need only read the newspapers of the day before yesterday (i.e. 21 March 1977) to see how a state witness changed his story and quite a number of people who had participated in riots in urban areas were released", the Minister of Justice, Mr. Kruger, said in Parliament in relation to this clause.
- Clause 213: gives uncontested written statements the same status as oral evidence. This does not include expert evidence (Clause 212) or documentary evidence (Clauses 212 and 213).
- Clause 217: deals with the challenging of confessions. Defence must now prove that confessions were not made freely and voluntarily. Previously the onus was on the state. In practice, in order to prove he did not freely confess the only witnesses an accused can call are the police who interrogated him, so he has in effect no witnesses except himself.
Of the new laws referred to in FOCUS 9, the Civil Protection Bill was gazetted as the Civil Defence Act on 26 May 1977. On 14 April 1977 the Minister of Justice, Mr. J. Kruger, said the Indemnity Act, indemnifying the State against liability during the unrest since June last year, had recently been promulgated.
