South Africa: Proposals to Combat White‐Collar Crime at National Level

In this paper the legislative and regulatory role of the South African government with regard to the combating of white‐collar crime will be delineated. Five major relevant constitutional issues, namely, the right to information, the validity of legal presumptions, the burden of proof, the right to be presumed innocent and the right to a speedy trial, will be briefly discussed. The magnitude of white‐collar crime in South Africa and on a global level is staggering, as proven by the following figures: a total number of 58,668 commercial crime cases were reported to the Commercial Crime component of the South African Police's Detective Service during 1997. These cases had a total value of R3,609,926,736. In the first six months of 1998, 29,556 cases were reported with a value of R2,170,000,000.