Compulsion Case Study

The principles of necessity and compulsion are often used as a defense for murder or other crimes. It is, however, apparent that the application of these principles within the laws and the application of South Africa and England differ as the underlying principles remain the same. I will be analyzing cases from both countries that have used necessity and compulsion as a defence and make recommendations of how this principle is used as an excuse to criminal liability in certain circumstances with regards to the laws of each country.

In South Africa law, according to Burchell, there is a specific set of criteria that is required to be met for the use and consideration of necessity to be a valid form of justification in terms of South African law. These are: “(a) a legal interest of the accused must have been endangered; (b) by a threat which

In contrast the English approach of the law, prior to the Director of Public Prosecutions Northern Ireland v Lynch, claims that the defence of ‘duress’ was not open to a murder in the first degree, despite its availability as a principle in the second degree. However, 12 years after Lynch, in Howe, withdrew the defence of compulsion with anyone charged with murder in principle to anyone charged in the first or second degree. As noted above, Lord MacKay referred to Rumpff JA in the Goliath case, which emphasizes that a South African court allows compulsion to operate as a complete defence of murder only after a complete analysis of all the circumstances, He recommended that the House of Lords should adopt a ‘middle position’ of convicting a person who intentionally kills under culpable homicide, rather than