24 common law, the Act or another statute in case of conflict (cf S v Marwane 1982 (3) SA 717 (A) at 747H – 748B).’ They submit that if s 276 may be invoked in respect of any offence for which no other sentence is prescribed then it renders the penalty provisions in all other legislation superfluous and contend that the proposition that it resolves the question of a legal basis for sentencing offenders under the provisions of the Act ‘is simply not correct’. They also point out that the charge sheet makes no reference to this section. [30] I start, as with the interpretation of any other statutory provision, with the language of s 276(1). Its operative words are ‘the following sentences may be passed upon a person convicted of an offence’. There is nothing obscure or unclear about that language. It identifies the sentences that our law permits and says that those sentences may be imposed upon a person convicted of an offence. It echoes the similar language of the earlier Criminal Procedure Acts. Thus s 338(2) of the Criminal Procedure Act 31 of 1917 read: ‘Sentences to the following punishments may be passed upon a convicted offender subject to the provisions of this Act or of any other law or of the common law …’ Section 329(3) of the Criminal Procedure Act 56 of 1955 read: ‘The following sentences may subject to the provisions of this Act or any other law or of the common law be passed upon a person convicted of any offence …’ The section has a twofold purpose. In the first place it empowers courts to impose sentences upon persons convicted of crimes. It is the embodiment of the principle nulla poena sine lege. Second it limits the punishments that courts may impose to those set out in the section and no others. That is what, as was said in S v Malgas supra,39 prevents the courts from devising new punishments. 39 Para 2.