Not a day goes by in present South Africa when the role of law, the rule of law, the independence of the judiciary and the future of constitutional democracy is not debated. This book will take the reader into the heart of the legal system, the understanding of which is necessary when wrestling with these pressing questions. The book examines a series of key cases over the past 60 years, the judgements in which changed the political or social landscape of the country. The choice of cases for inclusion in the book was made both to tell compelling and significant historical stories, as well as to illustrate the possibilities inherent in law, and the potential for its abuse and use. All of the chosen cases were ones where the country held its collective breath before judgement was delivered. Through the stories told, the reader will not only engage with critical aspects of South African history, but will be exposed to the manner in which the possibility of our new constitutional democracy is linked to the legal precedents, traditions and culture which were built up over the past century.
What happens when South Africa's tumultuous political life becomes entangled in the courts of law? Throughout the past 50 years, the courts have been a battleground for contesting political forces as more and more conflicts that were once fought in Parliament or in streets, or through strikes and media campaigns, find their way to the judiciary. Certainly, the legal system was used by both the apartheid state and its opponents. But it is in the post-apartheid era, and in particular under the rule of President Jacob Zuma, that we have witnessed a dramatic increase in 'lawfare': the migration of politics to the courts. The authors show through a series of case studies how just about every aspect of political life ends up in court: the arms deal, the demise of the Scorpions, the Cabinet reshuffle, the expulsion of the EFF from Parliament, the nuclear procurement process, the Cape Town mayor – the list goes on and on. This book offers a highly readable analysis of some of the most widely publicised and decisive instances of lawfare. It argues that while it is good that the judiciary is able to shoulder the burden of supporting democracy, it is showing signs of immense strain under the present deluge of political cases. Whether the courts will survive this strain undamaged remains to be seen.
This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1987.
This book provides a history of some of the main institutions of South African private law and in so doing explores the process through which integration of the English common law and the continental civil law came about in that jurisdiction. Here is a book aimed at both European and South African audiences. For European lawyers it provides a stimulating insight into the way the process of harmonization of private law has occurred in South Africa and may occur within the European Union. By analysing the historical evolution of the most important institutions of the law of obligations and the law of property the book demonstrates how the two legal traditions have been accommodated within one system. The starting point for each essay is the "pure" Roman-Dutch law as it was transplanted to the Cape of Good Hope in the years following 1652 (and as it has been examined in considerable detail in another volume edited by Robert Feenstra and Reinhard Zimmerman, published in 1992). The analysis focuses on how the Roman-Dutch law has been preserved, changed, modified or replaced in the course of the nineteenth century when the Cape became a British colony; and on what happened after the creation of the union of South Africa in 1910. Each essay therefore attempts, in the field of law with which it is dealing, to answer questions such as: what was the level of interaction between the civil law and the common law? What were the mechanisms that brought about the particular form of competition, coexistence or fusion that exists in that area of law? Is the process complete or is it still continuing? Is it possible to observe the emergence, from these two routes, of a genuinely South African private law? How is the result to be evaluated? In establishing reception patterns at the level of specific areas of law, they go beyond generalization about the compatibility of the two traditions and present evidence of a possible symbiosis of English and Continental law. For South African readers the principal value of the book is that it offers essays by the most prominent South African private lawyers refelecting on the history of their subjects. It therefore constitutes the first stage in the writing of a history of substantive private law in South Africa. So far the focus has mainly been on the so called "external history" of South African law, and such texts as there are on the development of the institutions of private law are often in Afrikaans and mainly to be found in unpublished theses. Thus this book fulfils a real need for those teaching South African private law and legal history. Although the volume investigates a specific aspect of the making of modern South African law it is imperative not to lose sight of the fact that private law in that country, as every way else did not develop in a vacuum, but as part of a wider political and social prcess. For this reason the book opens with an essay which contextualizes the contributions that follow, giving a view of the "setting" in which the development of South Africa took place: colonial domination, cultural imperialism, and racial and nationalistic ideologies. Two further introductory essays pay specific attention to the impact of the procedural framework on the substantive private law and to the "architects" of the mixed system.
South Africa's Resistance Press is a collection of essays celebrating the contributions of scores of newspapers, newsletters, and magazines that confronted the state in the generation after 1960. These publications contributed in no small measure to reviving a mass movement inside South Africa that would finally bring an end to apartheid. This marginalized press had an impact on its audience that cannot be measured in terms of the small number of issues sold, the limited amount of advertising revenue raised, or the relative absence of effective marketing and distribution strategies. These journalists rendered communities visible that were too often invisible and provided a voice for those too often voiceless. They contributed immeasurably to broadening the concept of a free press in South Africa. The guardians of the new South Africa owe these publications a debt of gratitude that cannot be repaid.
