The endurance of the roman tradition in South African Law

Abstract

The Roman tradition is visible in all spheres of the complex South African legal system. Although legal pluralism exists as a result of the prevailing cultural pluralism, Roman-Dutch law is regarded as the core of the South African common law. It is not unusual to find direct references to substantive Roman law in the South African Law Reports; or indirect references through the Roman-Dutch institutional writers. Importantly, the scientific framework of Roman-(Dutch) law still directs legal development in South Africa, even in the new Constitutional dispensation. Curiously, although they belong to wholly different families of laws and substantive Roman law was never received in African customary law, the Roman scientific framework and legal rules have commonly been used to explain that law and so to make it intelligible to the "Western" lawyer, thus contributing to the endurance of the Roman tradition in Africa. The Roman tradition has been preserved also in other Southern African countries, because of the prevailing Roman-Dutch tradition inherited from South Africa.