Obedience to orders could only be considered in mitigation of punishment if the Tribunal determined that justice so required.

In the latter case, in extraordinary conditions, the court may apply the extraordinary mitigation of punishment or even the renouncement of inflicting a punishment.

Let judgment be entered against me, but in strict justice all my ancestors for genera- tions should be made co-defendants and I be per- mitted to plead in mitigation of punishment the imperious mandate of heredity.

In Rex v Bourke, an important case in South African criminal law, the Transvaal Provincial Division (TPD) held that, under Roman-Dutch law, drunkenness is, as a general rule, no defence to a crime, although it may be a reason for mitigation of punishment.

Drunkenness due to one's own fault is in itself no defence to a criminal charge; and this is probably true also of drunkenness not due to one's own fault - though no doubt the fact that it was not due to one's own fault would be a ground for mitigation of punishment.