13 court could impose a sentence, within the limits of its general jurisdiction.23 That also had some academic support. Thus Professor Snyman writes: ‘If a statutory provision creates a criminal norm only, but remains silent on the criminal sanction … the punishment is simply in the court’s discretion, that is, the court itself may decide what punishment to impose.’24 The high court’s decision effectively holds that this latter proposition is incorrect and that, in the absence of a statutorily prescribed penalty, no offence is created, however clear the language of the statutory provision. That is necessarily implicit in its conclusion that the charge sheet failed to disclose an offence. In other words it held that the absence of a penalty provision in the Act in respect of these offences meant that the relevant sections did not give rise to an offence at all. [15] This conclusion conflates the operation of the two maxims. One can readily see that, when a court is confronted with the question whether a statutory provision prohibiting particular conduct is a crime, the failure of the legislature to attach a penalty to non-compliance is an important factor in determining whether a crime was constituted thereby. This was the determining factor in this court in R v Zinn,25 where it was held that a Besluit by the Transvaal Volksraad, prohibiting the use or occupation of land in townships by ‘Coloured’ people, did not, in the absence of a criminal penalty, create a criminal offence. Greenberg JA, who gave the judgment of the court, carefully refrained from deciding whether, in the absence of both an express statement of criminality and a penalty, it was 23 R v Forlee 1917 TPD 52 and the cases cited in paras 40 and 41 of the judgment of Blignault J in the high court. 24 C Snyman Criminal Law 5 ed 41. This passage, appearing in the third edition, was cited by Ackermann J in S v Francis 1994 (1) SACR 350 (C) at 355d-h, with apparent approval. See also Milton and Cowling South African Criminal Law and Procedure Volume III Statutory Offences 2 nd edition para 1-20; M A Rabie and M C Maré Rabie and Strauss Punishment: An Introduction to Principles (4 ed) 81-82. 25 R v Zinn 1946 AD 346.