The Study Of Admissibility On Criminal Evidence In South Africa

South Africa’s legal system has mixing characteristics. From one hand, because theSouth Africa is the home of the blacks, the aborigines’ inherent customary and the emiratescourt have been remained for a long time; from the other hand, since the17th century, theRoman-Dutch law、English common law has dominated in South Africa successively. Bycompeting and interacting with each other, the two together formed the South Africa’sunique hybrid law and system today. Just as Harrow and Calne, jurists, said:" Today SouthAfrica’s Roman-Dutch law is like the gem on a brooch, which is embedded in the base ofMade in UK sparkling." In the area of public law, South Africa law is mainly affected bycommon law system, including Roman-Dutch law and English law transplanted duringcolonial period. The most important ones among them are Roman-Dutch classics andjudicial precedent. In the judicial system, South Africa mainly followed the Britishpractice.At present, South Africa’s current Criminal Procedure Law was enacted in1977.Origins of the South African Criminal Evidence Act are: Civil Evidence Act1965(although this bill is related to civil procedure, however, as South Africa’s first EvidenceAct provides for the content, it provides for the future of the relevant provisions of theCriminal Evidence with premise)、1977Criminal Procedure Act (it has been amendedfor many times from then on)、1987Evidence Act and the amendments to the CriminalProcedure Code、1988Amendments to the Evidence Act. From the foregoing, the maincontent of the South African law of evidence is still British-style. As a core issue,admissibility of evidence law plays a decisive role in the status of the South African Lawof Evidence. This paper has introduced the character、similar fact、the best evidence、hearsay、opinion、previous consistent with statements and the res geatae, combined withrelated cases to make the reader to understand easily the South African related content ofthe admissibility of evidence in criminal, thus to fully comprehend the South Africanadmissibility system.