Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- Part 1 Puzzles, paradigms and problems
- Part II Law and order
- Part III South African common law A
- Part IV South African common law B
- 11 Creating the discourse: customary law and colonial rule in South Africa
- 12 After Union: the segregationist tide
- 13 The native appeal courts and customary law
- 14 Customary law, courts and code after 1927
- Part V Law and government
- Part VI Consideration
- Bibliography
- Index
- Index of legal cases cited
12 - After Union: the segregationist tide
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- Part 1 Puzzles, paradigms and problems
- Part II Law and order
- Part III South African common law A
- Part IV South African common law B
- 11 Creating the discourse: customary law and colonial rule in South Africa
- 12 After Union: the segregationist tide
- 13 The native appeal courts and customary law
- 14 Customary law, courts and code after 1927
- Part V Law and government
- Part VI Consideration
- Bibliography
- Index
- Index of legal cases cited
Summary
Codification
In 1910, as we have seen, the government of the new Union inherited a diversity of approaches. There was a formal assimilation in much of the Cape, subject to a recognition of an uncodified colonial version of African law in its African territories. In Natal a codified African law had priority in cases concerning Africans. In the republics there had been virtually no effective legal recognition of African personal law. Three questions became perennial in the debate about African law. One was whether it was to be recognised Union wide. This was answered in the affirmative in 1927 by the Native Administration Act. Another was the complex set of issues that arose as to its relationship, where and if it was recognised, with the dominant system, and when, and to whom, African law was to apply. The third, closely related to the debates about the others, was how to determine what it was. In particular, did recognition admit of a need for certainty, and did the latter mean codification? As early as 1835 the Governor of the Cape had proposed the codification of a law for the conquered African subjects. Brookes prints the reply of Lord Glenelg, the Secretary of State for the Colonies.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Making of South African Legal Culture 1902–1936Fear, Favour and Prejudice, pp. 273 - 290Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2001