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South African criminal law is the body of national law relating to crime in South Africa. In the definition of Van der Walt ''et al'', a crime is "conduct which common or statute law prohibits and expressly or impliedly subjects to punishment remissible by the state alone and which the offender cannot avoid by his own act once he has been convicted."〔Va n der Wait ''et al'' 1985, p. 24.〕 Crime involves the infliction of harm against society. The function or object of criminal law is to provide a social mechanism with which to coerce members of society to abstain from conduct that is harmful to the interests of society. In South Africa, as in most adversarial legal systems, the standard of evidence required to validate a criminal conviction is proof beyond a reasonable doubt. The sources of South African criminal law are to be found in the common law, in case law and in legislation. Criminal law (which is to be distinguished from its civil counterpart) forms part of the public law of South Africa,〔The state, that is, plays an active role in criminal litigation.〕 as well as of the substantive law (as opposed to the procedural).〔"Criminal procedure is, from the point of view of criminal law, an important auxiliary branch of the law" (Snyman 2008, p. 3).〕 The study of “criminal law” generally focuses on the substantive law: namely, the principles of law according to which criminal liability (guilt or innocence) is determined, whereas the law of criminal procedure, together with the law of evidence, generally focuses on the procedures used to decide criminal liability and theories of punishment.〔Kemp ''Criminal Law'' 4.〕 A study of the substantive criminal law may be divided into two broad sections: # an examination of the general principles of liability (applicable to crimes generally); and # an examination of the definitions and particular requirements of the various individual crimes or "specific offences."〔Kemp ''Criminal Law'' 4.〕 A distinction must be drawn also between national and international criminal law. The term "criminal law" usually refers to internal or domestic or national criminal law, which is governed by the legal system of the country concerned. The term "international criminal law," denoting a more recent branch of the law, is viewed by some as a branch of public international law, while others contend that it is, "at least in the material sense (and to a growing extent also in the institutional and procedural sense), a discipline in its own right."〔Kemp ''Criminal Law'' 4.〕 == Punishment == The criminal justice system in South Africa is aimed at law enforcement, the prosecution of offenders and the punishment of the convicted. It is that part or sub-system of the national legal system which determines the circumstances and the procedures according to which people and legal entities may be punished by the State for criminal conduct. Punishment is the authoritative infliction by the State of suffering for a criminal offence. The "essential purpose of criminal law is to provide a mechanism for ''punishing'' the offender."〔Kemp ''Criminal Law'' 13, 20.〕 There are numerous theories of punishment, whose two main purposes are # to justify the punishment imposed; and # to define the type and scope of different punishments. The various theories of punishment seek to answer the question: "Why does the criminal justice system punish individuals? In other words, ''what is the purpose of punishment''?"〔Kemp ''Criminal Law'' 20.〕 In criminal law, a number of theories of punishment have been identified. They are normally grouped or classified under three broad headings: # retributive or absolute theories of punishment, which justify punishment on the basis that it is deserved; # utilitarian or relative theories of punishment, which justify punishment on the basis that it is socially beneficial; and # combination or unitary theories of punishment, which fuse in various measures the other two categories. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「South African criminal law」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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