LEGAL PRINCIPLE: CONSTITUTIONAL LAW — Immunity Provisions — Criminal Proceedings — Meaning Distinguished from Police Investigation

"Criminal proceedings do not include police investigation as an act. The findings or the result or conclusions reached eventually in the investigation could. It is true that the evidence acquired in the course of police investigation may be used in criminal proceedings and become decisive of their outcome but that does not make the investigation itself criminal proceedings. No amount of a liberal interpretation of the constitutional provision of section 308(1)(a) of the 1999 constitution can make it so. A stage could be reached in an investigation where it might look, from the evidence, that there is sufficient cause to believe that an accused has emerged or been discovered. It is usually at that stage that he is arrested, charged and cautioned. Eventually, the proceedings held against him for an alleged offence arising from the investigation become known as criminal proceedings. It follows that criminal proceedings are commenced when an accused person is arraigned before a court, or at the least, when an information or a charge has been filed against him in court."