Section A:
Introduction
Chapter 1
The South African Legal System
1.1 A short history of the law
1.2 Sources of the law
1.3 The courts in the Republic
1.4 The doctrine of stare decisis
1.5 Interpretation of statutes
1.6 Court judgments
1.1 A short history of the law
Law is a social science; it has to provide for the changing needs of a developing
community and consequently is inseparably bound up with the community it has to
serve. For a thorough understanding of the law it is essential to have a knowledge not
only of the community in which it functions, but also of its history and of the factors
which led to its origin and development. This is why every study of the law includes a
study of the history of the law. Another reason is that a knowledge of legal history helps
to evaluate probable trends of future development.
South African law, unlike, for example, most European continental legal systems, is
not codified (that is, recorded in one comprehensive piece of legislation). The law
applying in the Republic is drawn from various authoritative sources. The principal
sources are statutes and decided cases, but sometimes a judge or other jurist has to go
further back in history to solve a legal problem, and turns to Roman law or the works of
the writers on Roman-Dutch law to shed light on the problems. Roman law and RomanDutch law are also recognised sources of the law.
South African law today is the product of different sources. First, it has its origins in
Roman law. Secondly, during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Roman law became
fused with Dutch customary law — hence the term Roman-Dutch law — and it was this
law that Van Riebeeck brought to South Africa. Thirdly, as can naturally be expected in
view of the country’s history, English law exerted a considerable influence on
RomanDutch law.
Each one of these historical sources will be dealt with very briefly.