APPEAL LAW IN AFRICA

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27150, 21 September 1953, Page 9

APPEAL LAW IN AFRICA

•Bill To Set Up Two Courts (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 8 p.m.) CAPE TOWN, Sept. 18. The South African Government tonight introduced a bill which would create two Courts of Appeal—one to deal with civil and criminal cases, and the other for constitutional issues. The present Appeal Court has ruled invalid legislation to remove the mixed-race coloured population of the Cape Province from the common European electoral roll. The bill provides that the Court of Civil and Criminal Appeal shall consist of the Chief Justice and as many Judges of Appeal as the GovernorGeneral may from time to time determine.

The Court of Constitutional Appeal would consist of a President and four Judges of Constitutional Appeal. There would be no appeal from any ■ judgment or order given by this Court. The South Africa Act of 1909, passed by the British Parliament, to form the Union of South Africa, provided for an Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, comprising a Chief Justice and four Judges of Appeal. An act of Parliament in 1948 added another Judge. Under the terms of the new bill the Governor-General may whenever he deems it expedient designate any Judge or Acting-Judge qf the Supreme Court to act as President or as a Judge of the Court of Constitutional Appeal, either in place of a Judge of Constitutional Appeal or in addition to Judges of Constitutional Appeal, or to fill a temporary vacancy in the Court. One clause says that in all cases, whether criminal or civil, involving the validity of an act of Parliament or of an ordinance passed by a Provincial Council or the Legislative Assembly of South-west Africa, the appeal shall in future be made only to the Court of Constitutional Appeal. The bill says that the rules for the conduct of the proceedings of the Court of Civil and Criminal Appeal under the South Africa Act, and the manner in which appeals are made to it, will apply to the Court of Constitutional Appeal. _ The Court of Civil and Criminal Appeal will, under the bill, have no jurisdiction to hear any appeal in any case, criminal or civil, in which the validity of an act or ordinance is in question, or to pronounce upon the validity of such an act or ordinance.