Snyman’s Criminal Law UNISA Aligned Full Textbook Summary and Exam Tips from Past Papers: Part2

Description

Part 2 answers the question students insist on skipping: did the accused actually perform conduct in the legal sense? Criminal liability does not begin with unlawfulness or intention — it begins with human, voluntary conduct. No conduct, no crime. It really is that simple, and yet it is routinely ignored in exams.

This section explains why thoughts, intentions, emotions and even morally outrageous behaviour are legally meaningless unless translated into controlled bodily movement. It carefully sets out the requirement of voluntariness, showing when conduct is excluded entirely — including cases of automatism, reflex actions, convulsions and unconscious behaviour — and why courts approach these defences with understandable suspicion.

Part 2 also introduces the crucial (and frequently misunderstood) idea of prior voluntary conduct, ensuring that an accused cannot escape liability by pointing to a later loss of control that he himself set in motion. Students who miss this point tend to write very long answers to questions that should have ended in two lines.

This is not a long section, nor is it dramatic. It is, however, the gatekeeper of criminal liability. Master it, and you will know when to stop writing. Ignore it, and you will analyse unlawfulness, fault and defences in a case where the law has already closed the door.

In short: this part exists to save you time, save you marks, and quietly separate careful legal thinkers from enthusiastic over-writers.