Can any kind soul please help me with a bit of South African law? I have found a list of previous convictions of a notorius relative, which lists 5 offences he was tried for. Four were for theft, and he was found guilty of all four, and received hard labour. In one instance in 1923 in Pretoria, though, the record says the crime was "CS 9 Act 16/14", and the Judgement is left blank. The sentence was "Until rising of Ct". I assume that is until the rising of the court, but I don't know what it really means in practice, or what the crime of "CS 9 Act 16/14" involved. Can anyone help? Thanks & best wishes, John Wynne Cheshire, UK
I don't know what the CS 9 Act was, but it might be "Criminal Sentencing" or similar. "Until the rising of the court" is what would be awarded if the accused had already been in custody (i.e. awaiting trial) for longer than the standard sentence for the crime he was found guilty of. An option these days in English Law (as also in Australia where I live) might also be that the accused is found guilty but no conviction is recorded, i.e. the court might regard the offence as so trivial or the degree of guilt so slight that the accused should not have the permanent stain on his name that a recorded conviction would entail; this could happen in a case of conspiracy where some of the accused are regarded as having been "led" by the principal defendant, rather than having acted on their own initiative. On 4 Nov 2011, at 8:48 AM, John Wynne wrote: > Can any kind soul please help me with a bit of South African law? > I have found a list of previous convictions of a notorius relative, > which lists 5 offences he was tried for. > Four were for theft, and he was found guilty of all four, and > received hard labour. > In one instance in 1923 in Pretoria, though, the record says the > crime was "CS 9 Act 16/14", and the Judgement is left blank. The > sentence was "Until rising of Ct". > I assume that is until the rising of the court, but I don't know > what it really means in practice, or what the crime of "CS 9 Act > 16/14" involved. > Can anyone help? > Thanks & best wishes, > John Wynne > Cheshire, UK Andrew Rodger rodgera@audioio.com