African customary law: Its social and ideological function in South Africa
Date
1983-10-13
Authors
Suttner, Raymond
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Abstract
The study of the terms and mode of application of African customary
law in South Africa has generally been neglected both by
lawyers and African Studies scholars. In the case of lawyers, there
is little interest in a law potentially relevant to seventy per
cent of the population - where that seventy per cent is for the
most part unable to pay lawyers' fees.
In the case of students of African studies, the segregated legal
and judicial systems may seem of marginal consequence, in the light
of the more serious disabilities that people experience through
more patently repressive laws, such as those regulating influx
control, resettlement, banishment etc., let alone laws concerning
directly political activities. It would nevertheless be wrong, I
shall try to show, to dismiss this area as unimportant or innocuous.
This paper seeks to demonstrate how the special court and legal
system set up to deal with civil cases between Africans, contributes
ideologically, economically and socially, to the national
oppression of the African people.
Description
African Studies Seminar series. Paper presented 13 October 1983
Keywords
Customary law. South Africa