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Government’s newly proposed Unlawful Entry on Premises Bill has quite a few land and homeowners getting into a crime-fatigued twist. A lot of this has to do with the number of ‘interpretations’ that people have been explaining on various social media platforms.

During a recent discussion on CapeTalk, the issue was once again raised after a TikTok did the rounds which claimed that “if someone is able to break into your property and breach your security system, according to the new Bill, you would not be allowed to defend yourself”.

Obviously, it’s TikTok, so not the best source of legal advice. Secondly, the best ‘interpretations’ are usually from people who have a PhD in whatever subject is being interpreted, such as Dr Simon Howell, research associate at the University of Cape Town’s Centre for Criminology.

According to the expert, there are still some issues, such as the ‘need to be more explicit in its demarcation between it and any common law housebreaking concern. In other words, there is a difference between someone breaking into your house, and someone jumping over the wall to fill a bottle of water on a hot day.

“The Bill does not affect your common law right to defend your property should you be broken into.”

Whatever the bill says, it does not affect people’s common law rights. According to common law, you are allowed to defend yourself against an imminent attack using the minimum amount of force to stop the attack.

@ronald_lamola Debunking the myths about the Unlawful Entry on Premises Bill. #TrespassingLaw #RonaldLamola #DepartmentOfJustice ♬ original sound – Ronald Lamola

So if someone kicks in your door and threatens your life, you are within your rights to defend yourself with the minimum force required to do so. You cannot empty two magazines from your Glock 19 into a dude trying to steal your laptop through the window.

With South Africans growing more and more frazzled by the day as a seemingly endless wave of crime washes over us, the government needs to be clear when they put these bills together. People are tired and nervous, and the slightest provocation seems to escalate into violence these days.

As someone who was violently assaulted on my own property this past weekend, I can sympathise with people overreacting in such situations. The threat of violence is often a paralysing experience, and as private citizens, we should not have to deal with situations like this in the first place.

But alas, the government seems to have tapped out when it comes to our safety, rather than leaving us with vague laws that no one without a PhD in criminology understands.

But hey, they have VIP protection, so your family’s is not really something that comes up in conversation around their braais.

[source:capetalk]