Forfeiture to the State: Using Grammar to Interpret Section 35 of the Criminal Procedure Act

Section 35(1)(a) of South Africa's Criminal Procedure Act 51 of 1977 allows a court of law to declare items forfeited to the state if they were used as weapons or instruments in aid of committing an offence. However, it is not always clear what qualifies as potential instruments of crime or wh...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Terrence R Carney
Format: Article
Language:Afrikaans
Published: North-West University 2025-02-01
Series:Potchefstroom Electronic Law Journal
Subjects:
Online Access:https://perjournal.co.za/article/view/19242
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1832541402482868224
author Terrence R Carney
author_facet Terrence R Carney
author_sort Terrence R Carney
collection DOAJ
description Section 35(1)(a) of South Africa's Criminal Procedure Act 51 of 1977 allows a court of law to declare items forfeited to the state if they were used as weapons or instruments in aid of committing an offence. However, it is not always clear what qualifies as potential instruments of crime or what the proximity of the instrument is to the offence. For the purpose of statutory interpretation, this contribution identifies a grammatical construction frequently present in abstractions of offence descriptions as a means to identify an instrument and its direct involvement in an offence. It takes the form of the construction, "X does Y to Z with A", which contains the instrument prepositional phrase "with A". Read with other thematic roles like "Agent" and "Patient", the statutory interpreter should be able to determine both the relevant instrument role and its potential to affect a change in the object of a sentence, suggesting direct involvement. To better understand the grammar, this contribution modestly explains the Cognitive Linguistic approach to argument structure and thematic roles and briefly summarises Ronald Langacker's "action chain" model. The grammatical construction is then applied to examples taken from South African and Dutch case law dealing with forfeiture to illustrate its potential as a tool for interpretation.
format Article
id doaj-art-5333454be8784c398f6cba91301bcd4a
institution Kabale University
issn 1727-3781
language Afrikaans
publishDate 2025-02-01
publisher North-West University
record_format Article
series Potchefstroom Electronic Law Journal
spelling doaj-art-5333454be8784c398f6cba91301bcd4a2025-02-04T08:28:45ZafrNorth-West UniversityPotchefstroom Electronic Law Journal1727-37812025-02-012810.17159/1727-3781/2025/v28i0a19242Forfeiture to the State: Using Grammar to Interpret Section 35 of the Criminal Procedure ActTerrence R Carney0https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8922-5668University of South Africa Section 35(1)(a) of South Africa's Criminal Procedure Act 51 of 1977 allows a court of law to declare items forfeited to the state if they were used as weapons or instruments in aid of committing an offence. However, it is not always clear what qualifies as potential instruments of crime or what the proximity of the instrument is to the offence. For the purpose of statutory interpretation, this contribution identifies a grammatical construction frequently present in abstractions of offence descriptions as a means to identify an instrument and its direct involvement in an offence. It takes the form of the construction, "X does Y to Z with A", which contains the instrument prepositional phrase "with A". Read with other thematic roles like "Agent" and "Patient", the statutory interpreter should be able to determine both the relevant instrument role and its potential to affect a change in the object of a sentence, suggesting direct involvement. To better understand the grammar, this contribution modestly explains the Cognitive Linguistic approach to argument structure and thematic roles and briefly summarises Ronald Langacker's "action chain" model. The grammatical construction is then applied to examples taken from South African and Dutch case law dealing with forfeiture to illustrate its potential as a tool for interpretation. https://perjournal.co.za/article/view/19242cognitive linguisticsforfeituregrammarinstrumentlanguage and lawCriminal Procedure Act
spellingShingle Terrence R Carney
Forfeiture to the State: Using Grammar to Interpret Section 35 of the Criminal Procedure Act
Potchefstroom Electronic Law Journal
cognitive linguistics
forfeiture
grammar
instrument
language and law
Criminal Procedure Act
title Forfeiture to the State: Using Grammar to Interpret Section 35 of the Criminal Procedure Act
title_full Forfeiture to the State: Using Grammar to Interpret Section 35 of the Criminal Procedure Act
title_fullStr Forfeiture to the State: Using Grammar to Interpret Section 35 of the Criminal Procedure Act
title_full_unstemmed Forfeiture to the State: Using Grammar to Interpret Section 35 of the Criminal Procedure Act
title_short Forfeiture to the State: Using Grammar to Interpret Section 35 of the Criminal Procedure Act
title_sort forfeiture to the state using grammar to interpret section 35 of the criminal procedure act
topic cognitive linguistics
forfeiture
grammar
instrument
language and law
Criminal Procedure Act
url https://perjournal.co.za/article/view/19242
work_keys_str_mv AT terrencercarney forfeituretothestateusinggrammartointerpretsection35ofthecriminalprocedureact