About this site

This resource is hosted by the Nelson Mandela Foundation, but was compiled and authored by Padraig O’Malley. It is the product of almost two decades of research and includes analyses, chronologies, historical documents, and interviews from the apartheid and post-apartheid eras.

1965. Criminal Procedure Amendment Act No 96

This doubled the time of detention without trial from 90 to 180 days (Dyzenhaus 1991: 106, note 81); see the GENERAL LAWS AMENDMENT ACT of 1963. Thus it became popularly known as the "180-day law".

It also "gave the executive [officials] the power to make regulations governing the conditions of detention and expressly deprived the courts of the jurisdiction to pronounce upon the validity of such regulations. Regulations were then made which gave the officer in command of the place of detention a discretion over access to reading and writing material" (Dyzenhaus 1991: 106, note 81).

Section 10 made a capital crime out of kidnapping and childstealing (Dugard 1978: 126).

This resource is hosted by the Nelson Mandela Foundation, but was compiled and authored by Padraig O’Malley. Return to theThis resource is hosted by the site.