Section 1 Of The Criminal Law Amendment Case Study

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Section 1(1) of the Criminal Law Amendment Act, a Complete Fail.
Introduction
The question of whether an accused should be acquitted on the grounds of voluntary intoxication is an ongoing debate amongst academics. On the one hand, a logical legal approach to the matter is one that requires the existence of all elements of a crime for a successful conviction. On the other hand, is the issue of policy considerations. It has been accepted that intoxication may impair mental faculties including the cognitive and conative capacities, subsequently leading to lack of criminal capacity in terms of the Criminal Procedure Act . If an accused kills a person while in the state of severe intoxication, in terms of jurisprudential approach, the accused will be acquitted for murder due to lack of criminal capacity that’s due to intoxication. This …show more content…

Snyman is of the view that a person who is voluntarily intoxicated and commits an offence in this state, ought not to have a ground for complaining. He further states that punishment theories such as retributive and deterrent, demand that the intoxicated culprit should not be allowed to hide behind his drunkenness to escape liability.
Section 1 (1) of the Criminal Law Amendment Act (thereafter, the “Act”) reads as follows, “Any person who consumes or uses any substance which impairs his or her faculties to appreciate the wrongfulness of his or her acts or to act in accordance with that appreciation, while knowing that such substance has that effect, and who while such faculties are thus impaired commits any act prohibited by law under any penalty, but is not criminally liable because his or her faculties were impaired as aforesaid, shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable on conviction to the penalty which may be imposed in respect of the commission of that

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