WITCHCRAFT SUPPRESSION ACT 3 OF 1957 [ASSENTED TO 19 FEBRUARY 1957] [DA TE OF COMMENCEMENT: 22 FEBRUARY 1957]

(English text signed by the Governor-General) as amended by Witchcraft Suppression Amendment Act 50 of 1970: Abolition of Corporal Punishment Act 33 of 1997 ACT

To provide for the suppression of the practice of witchcraft and similar practices.

1 Offences relating to the practice of witchcraft and similar practices

Any person who-

(a) imputes to any other person the causing, by supernatural means, of any disease

in or injury or damage to any person or thing, or who names or indicates any other person as a wizard;

(b) in circumstances indicating that he professes or pretends to use any supernatural power, witchcraft, sorcery, enchantment or conjuration, imputes the cause of death of, injury or grief to, disease in, damage to or disappearance of any person or thing to any other person;

(c) employs or solicits any witchdoctor, witch-finder or any other person to name or indicate any person as a wizard;

(d) professes a knowledge of witchcraft, or the use of charms, and advises any person how to bewitch, injure or damage any person or thing, or supplies any person with any pretended means of witchcraft;

(e) on the advice of any witchdoctor, witch-finder or other person or on the ground of any pretended knowledge of witchcraft, uses or causes to be put into operation any means or process which, in .accordance with such advice or his own belief, is calculated to injure or damage any person or thing;

(f) for gain pretends to exercise or use any supernatural power, witchcraft, sorcery, enchantment or conjuration, or undertakes to tell fortunes, or pretends from his skill in or knowledge of any occult science to discover where and in what manner anything supposed to have been stolen or lost may be found,

shall be guilty of an offence and liable on conviction

(i) in the case of an offence referred to in paragraph (a) or (b) in consequence of which the person in respect of whom such offence was committed, has been killed, or where the accused has been proved to be by habit or repute a

witchdoctor or witch-finder, to imprisonment for a period not exceeding 20 years;

[Para. (i) substituted by s. 2 of Act 33 of 1997.]

(ii) in the case of any other offence referred to in the said paragraphs, to a fine or imprisonment for a period not exceeding ten years;

[Para. (ii) substituted by s. 2 of Act 33 of 1997.]

(iii) in the case of an offence referred to in paragraph (c), (d) or (e), to a fine not exceeding five hundred rand or to imprisonment for a period not exceeding five years, or to both such fine and such imprisonment;

(iv) in the case of an offence referred to in paragraph (f), to a fine not exceeding two hundred rand or to imprisonment for a period not exceeding two years.

[So 1 substituted by s. 1 of Act 50 of 1970.]

2 Presumption

Where any person in respect of whom an offence referred to in paragraph (a) or (b) of section 1 was committed, is killed, it shall be presumed, until the contrary is proved, that such person was killed in consequence of the commission of such offence.

[So 2 substituted by s. 2 of Act 50 of 1970.]

3 Repeal of laws

The laws mentioned in the Schedule to this Act are hereby repealed to the extent set out

in the fourth column of that Schedule.

4 Short title

This Act shall be called the Witchcraft Suppression Act, 1957.

Schedule

LAWS REPEALED

PROVINCE OR TERRITORY	NO. AND YEAR OF LAW	TITLE OR SUBJECT OF LAW	EXTENT OF REPEAL
Cape of Good Hope	Act 24 of 1886 Act 2 of 1895	The Black Territories' Penal Code The Witchcraft Suppression Act, 1895	Chapter XI The whole
Natal Transvaal Zululand	Law 19 of 1891 Ordinance 26 of 1904 I Proclamation 11 of 1887	Natal Code of Black Law The Crimes Ordinance, 1904 Laws and Regulations for the Government of Zulu land	I Section one hundred and twenty-nine of the Schedule as substituted by Union Proclamation 168 of 1932 Sections twenty-nine to thirty-four inclusive Regulations nine and ten