The fact that you have committed a crime does not make you guilty of that crime, or at least, does not mean you should be punished for it. The grossness of the crime or lack thereof matters.
The legal maxim de minimis non curat lex kicks in as soon as a petty crime has been committed.
In S v Kgogong1 Trollip JA held that in certain circumstances, where the offence committed is so trivial, the accused should not be prosecuted therefor, but if he is, he should generally be acquitted for, in the contemplation of the law, because of the de minimis rule, the offence must be regarded as not having been committed.
The applicability of the maxim de minimis non curat lex was discussed at length in S v Dimuri and Others2, cited with approval in S v Visagie3, where the Court stated that4:
“The de minimis principle is recognised as part of the criminal law. It applies to its fullest extent to permit of an acquittal where such is the triviality of the alleged offence that it ought not to have been prosecuted.”
In S v Visagie, which happened to be a case of assault, the appeal court was of the view that pushing the victim was so trivial that it did not warrant a conviction. Whilst the appeal court was satisfied that the act of pushing covered all the elements of assault, the conviction was set aside based on the de minimis non curat lex maxim, which decision the court reached even though the victim had fallen down when he was pushed and broke his wrist as a result.
In R v Maguire5 Beadle CJ said that, wherever the defence of de minimis non curat lex is raised, the court has to consider all the circumstances under which the blow which is said to be trivial was delivered. In some circumstances, a blow may be considered so trivial as to justify the court ignoring it altogether, in different circumstances, a similar blow might be a relatively serious assault.
The law does not concern itself with trivialities. When the crime committed is so petty or when the value of the item stolen is so low that it invokes the legal maxim de minimis non curat lex.
