Criminal procedure: recent cases

Abstract

In Minister of Safety and Security v Van der Merwe 2011 (2) SACR 301 (CC) at paras [36]-[37] the Constitutional Court identified a number of legislative safeguards to ameliorate the effect of searches and seizures on important constitutional rights. The court further laid down a number of prerequisites for a valid search warrant (at para [55]), as well as guidelines to be observed by a court considering the validity of the warrants (These safeguards and guidelines were referred to in P du Toit 'Recent cases: Criminal procedure' (2015) 28 SACJ 387 at 390-391). In Goqwana v Minister of Safety and Security 2016 (1) SACR 384 (SCA) the Supreme Court of Appeal dealt with the validity of a search warrant in the light of Van der Merwe supra and other case law. The appellant based his case on two main contentions, namely (i) that the search warrant contained insufficient particularity as to whom it was addressed; and (ii) that, ex facie the document, it did not specify the offence in connection with which the search was to be conducted, and therefore could not be 'reasonably intelligible' either to the searcher or person searched (at para [9]).