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Law, Race and Color in South Africa
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 May 2017
Extract
The word "apartheid" does not appear anywhere in the South African statute book, and a keen observer would be hard put to discover its existence anywhere in the formal texts which make up the law. Yet apartheid is deeply embedded in the law of South Africa.
In a country in which neither the content nor the administration of the law has ever been free from racial overtones, twenty-five years of continuous rule by the National Party Government have seen to it that the ideology of segregation has been translated into a formidable pattern of legalized racial discrimination. This pattern is to be observed throughout the entire apparatus of the South African legal system. It is written into the constitution and reflected in the legislature. It is a major constituent of the statute law of the country, and decisions as to the manner in which legislation is to be implemented make up a significant proportion of the case law. Apartheid has involved and influenced both the composition and the conduct of the courts, just as it has affected the legal profession and the teaching of law.
- Type
- Research Article
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- Copyright © African Studies Association 1974
References
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7 1950 (3) SA 126 (AD).
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10 There are no African lawyers practicing in the Orange Free State, in the Transvaal outside Johannesburg, or in the “tribal areas” outside the Transkei.
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22 Proclamation 400.
23 Act No. 38 of 1927, now called the Bantu Administration Act.
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