CHAPTER XIV
GENERAL DEFENCES AND MITIGATING FACTORS
Division C: Defences and Mitigating Factors Relating to Unlawfulness
PART XIX
TRIVIALITIES
270 Person charged with trivial crime entitled to acquittal
(1) Subject to this section, a person charged with a crime shall be entitled to be acquitted of the charge if the conduct constituting the crime is of a trivial nature.
(2) In deciding whether a crime is of a sufficiently trivial nature to justify the acquittal of the person charged in terms of subsection (1), a court shall take into account the following factors in addition to any others that are relevant to the particular case
(a) the extent of any harm done by the commission of the crime to any person or to the community as a whole; and
(b) the extent to which it appears, from the enactment which created the crime, that the lawmaker wished to prohibit conduct such as that perpetrated by the accused; and
(c) whether or not an acquittal will encourage other persons to commit the crime concerned.
(3) Where a crime is by its nature trivial, that is, where the conduct prohibited by the enactment concerned does little harm either to individual persons or to the community as a whole, a court shall not acquit a person charged with such a crime in terms of this section unless the conduct of the person charged is of a trivial nature in relation to the most serious conduct prohibited by the particular provision of the enactment concerned.
PART XX
UNAVOIDABLE ACCIDENT
271 Interpretation in Part XX of Chapter XIV
In this Part
“unavoidable accident” means a circumstance or event such as
(a) a heart attack or epileptic blackout suffered whilst driving a motor vehicle by a person who has not previously suffered from one and who has no reason to suppose that he or she might do so;
(b) a swarm of bees flying into a moving motor vehicle and stinging the driver;
(c) a stone thrown up by a passing vehicle and striking and stunning the driver of a moving motor vehicle;
the occurrence of which is so unlikely that a reasonable person, if in the position of the person whose conduct is under consideration, would not take steps to guard against it.
272 Requirements for unavoidable accident to be complete defence
Subject to this section, the fact that a person charged with a crime did or omitted to do anything that is an essential element of the crime as a result of an unavoidable accident shall be a complete defence to the charge if
(a) the unavoidable accident did not occur through his or her own fault; and
(b) a reasonable person, faced with the same unavoidable accident in the same circumstances, would not have been able to avoid the same conduct as would have constituted the crime.
Other defences - national proceedings
EDIT.