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Criminal Law (Sexual Offences and Related Matters) Amendment Act, 2007 (Act No. 32 of 2007)

Chapter 2 : Sexual Offences

Part 4: Incest, bestiality and sexual acts with corpse

12. Incest

 

(1) Persons who may not lawfully marry each other on account of consanguinity, affinity or an adoptive relationship and who unlawfully and intentionally engage in an act of—
(a) sexual penetration with each other; or
(b) sexual violation with each other where one of them is a child, and the act of sexual violation was of such a nature that it was reprehensible for the adult person to have acted in that manner under the circumstances concerned,

are, despite their mutual consent to engage in such act, guilty of the offence of incest.

[Section 12(1) substituted by section 4 of the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences and Related Matters) Amendment Act, 2021 (Act No. 13 of 2021), GG45823, dated 28 January 2022 - effective 31 July 2022 as per Proclamation Notice R.79, GG47105, dated 29 July 2022]

 

(2) For the purposes of subsection (1)—
(a) the prohibited degrees of consanguinity (blood relationship) are the following:
(i) Ascendants and descendents in the direct line; or
(ii) collaterals, if either of them is related to their common ancestor in the first degree of descent;
(b) the prohibited degrees of affinity are relations by marriage in the ascending and descending line; and
(c) an adoptive relationship is the relationship of adoption as provided for in any other law.

 

(3)

(a) The institution of a prosecution of a person who is a child at the time of the alleged commission of the offence referred to in subsection (1) must be authorised in writing by the National Director of Public Prosecutions.
(b) The National Director of Public Prosecutions may not delegate his or her power to decide whether a prosecution in terms of this section should be instituted or not.