You or your lawyer can apply for bail at any stage of the court proceedings – but does this mean you need to go to court to apply for bail? Not necessarily. Did you know there are three different types of bail that the Criminal Procedure Act (CPA) allows for? Scorpion Legal Protection explains what they are and how they work.
Police Bail
Section 59 of the Criminal Procedure Act grants police the authority to release an arrested person on bail, before their first appearance in court. As you’ll remember, when you get arrested, section 50 of the CPA says you must be brought before a court within 48 hours of your arrest (or if you are arrested over the weekend or on a public holiday, by the end of the first court day after the expiry of the 48 hours). If you want to apply for police bail, you must apply at the police station within 48 hours of being arrested. The application must be made before your first court appearance.
You will need someone to bring proof of where you live and work for the application. The commanding officer of the police station, along with the investigating officer (if a docket has already been opened), will decide whether or not to grant the bail.
Police bail can only be granted if you do not have a criminal record. There must be no former offences or pending cases against your name. It is only allowed to be granted for minor offences like theft under R2 500, common assault, or possession of certain drugs under a certain number of grams.
Prosecutor’s Bail
This kind of bail can also be applied for at the police station but must be made to a prosecutor who has been authorised by the Director of Public Prosecutions to grant bail for more serious offences, like culpable homicide, assault with the intent to cause grievous bodily harm, housebreak and theft where the alleged stolen goods don’t exceed R20 000. You cannot get prosecutor’s bail for offences like murder or rape.
Prosecutor’s bail follows the same process as police bail, but a state prosecutor must be present during bail fixing. The investigative officer as well as the prosecutor’s permission is required for this type of bail.
Court bail
You apply for court bail at your first court appearance (the one that occurs within 48 hours of being arrested, as described above). This applies for more serious offences, and is more complicated than police or prosecutor’s bail. The court can grant bail at any time before conviction, but the state also has the right to postpone any bail application for a period not exceeding seven days – which means you will be sent to jail until you can be brought before court again. We would advise getting paralegal services with bail applications, as they can be complicated matters.
You may also be interested in:
Drunk driving arrest procedure
Paying admission of guilt fines
Unlawful arrests: what you need to know
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* This is only basic advice and cannot be relied on solely. The information is correct at the time of being sent to publishing.