General Law Amendment Act
The General Law Amendment Act, no 76 of 1962 was an Act of the South African Parliament.
It widened the definition of sabotage to include strikes, trade union activity, and writing slogans on walls. The maximum penalty for sabotage was hanging and the minimum five years imprisonment.
It reversed the normal burden of proof so that the accused were assumed to be guilty and had to prove their innocence.
Publications opposing the government were liable to a fine of R20,000.
The power of the Minister of Justice, a post held in 1962 by B. J. Vorster, to ban people and organisations, were extended. Anyone who had been charged under the Suppression of Communism Act, 1950 could be banned from holding office in named institutions. Such people became known as "statutory Communists" - even they had never actually been members of the Communist Party. They could be put under house arrest without trial, made to report daily to the police and be prohibited from attending social gatherings. [1]