The South African Criminal Procedure Act, sections 309B, 309C, 309D, and 315
to 317, allow opportunities for appeal and review of the verdict of a lower court.
As a democratic criminal justice system, it creates these checks and balances
to prevent the conviction and punishment of innocent people for crimes they
did not commit. However, even in the world’s most renowned justice system,
these avenues for appeal and review have failed to prevent erroneous convictions
of non-guilty individuals. The challenge with the convictions of the inculpable
remains prevalent across the globe. Various jurisdictions have developed different
judicial mechanisms to correct those guilty verdicts that have escaped the robust
and fluent criminal process of judicial appeals and reviews in order to prevent
the convictions of persons who did not commit crime. In South Africa, the only
mechanism that exists after exhausting all opportunities for judicial reviews and
appeals against the decision of a lower court is a non-judicial and a somewhat
political strategy outlined in section 327 of the Criminal Procedure Act. Considering

the prevalence of wrongful convictions and ongoing calls for establishing post-
conviction redress mechanisms in South Africa, this paper explores existing post-
conviction remedies in the United States of America, the United Kingdom, and

New Zealand with a view to proposing a suitable model for South Africa.

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