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.