The Making of South African Legal Culture 1902–1936
Fear, Favour and Prejudice

A definitive perspective on the development of the South African legal system in the early twentieth century.

Martin Chanock (Author)

9780521791564, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 5 March 2001

588 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 3.7 cm, 1 kg

'This imposing study is the culmination of more than a decade of scholarly publication on South African legal history by Martin Chanock, but readers will also fine here a reappraisal of themes that he addressed in his first book 25 years ago: the early Union state's weakness and its circumspect emergence from British imperial supervision and example. but whereas the earlier volume considered the Union externally from the perspective of Britain's plans for central and southern Africa, this book examines South African state formation from within … [an] extraordinarily ambitious book.' African Affairs

The development of the South African legal system in the early twentieth century was crucial to the establishment and maintenance of the systems which underpinned the racist state, including control of the population, the running of the economy, and the legitimization of the regime. Martin Chanock's highly illuminating and definitive perspective on that development examines all areas of the law: criminal law and criminology; the Roman-Dutch law; the State's African law; and land, labour and 'rule of law' questions. His revisionist analysis of the construction of South African legal culture illustrates the larger processes of legal colonization, while the consideration of the interaction between imported doctrine and legislative models with local contexts and approaches also provides a basis for understanding the re-fashioning of law under circumstances of post-colonialism and globalization.

Preface
Acknowledgements
List of abbreviations
Part I. Puzzles, Paradigms and Problems: 1. Four stories
2. Legal culture, state making and colonialism
Part II. Law and Order: 3. Police and policing
4. Criminology
5. Prisons and penology
6. Criminal law
7. Criminalising political opposition
Part III. South African Common Law A: 8. Roman-Dutch law
9. Marriage and race
10. The legal profession
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: 15. Land
16. Law and labour
17. The new province for law and order: struggles on the racial frontier
18. A rule of law
Part VI. Consideration: 19. Reconstructing the state: legal formalism, democracy and a post-colonial rule of law
Bibliography
Index
Index of legal cases cited.

Subject Areas: Jurisprudence & philosophy of law [LAB], 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], African history [HBJH], Regional studies [GTB]