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The history of the Cape supreme court and its role in the development of judicial precedent for the period 1827-1910

Hahlo and Kahn have aptly described South African Law as a 'three-layered cake'. This dissertation is not so much concerned with the ingredients of the cake, but with the Cape Supreme Court which was used to 'bake' the third layer, and the judges who were employed to supervise the task. However, in...

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Main Author: Fine, Hilton Basil
Format: Thesis
Language:English
English
Published: Centre for Law and Society 2026
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access_status_str Open Access
author Fine, Hilton Basil
author_browse Fine, Hilton Basil
author_facet Fine, Hilton Basil
author_sort Fine, Hilton Basil
collection Thesis
description Hahlo and Kahn have aptly described South African Law as a 'three-layered cake'. This dissertation is not so much concerned with the ingredients of the cake, but with the Cape Supreme Court which was used to 'bake' the third layer, and the judges who were employed to supervise the task. However, in order to wet the appetites of the legal gourmets, an attempt has been made to analyse the ingredient of judicial precedent, and to serve it up in the form of 'icing'. A survey of the traditional source materials utilized by lawyers, revealed a paucity of publications on the history of the Cape Supreme Court and on the early stages in the development of judicial precedent. It was therefore necessary to utilize archival material, government publications and unpublished theses. In approaching the subject, Hahlo and Kahn's concise survey proved to be an ideal starting point for conducting the investigation. Buttressed with Walker's biography of Lord de Villier's, 3 it was possible to obtain an overall picture of the developments which occurred during the period under consideration.
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language English
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last_indexed 2026-06-10T12:33:28.738Z
license_str Not specified — see source repository
provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
publishDate 2026
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spelling oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/42866 The history of the Cape supreme court and its role in the development of judicial precedent for the period 1827-1910 Fine, Hilton Basil Cape supreme court Judicial precedent 1827-1910 Hahlo and Kahn have aptly described South African Law as a 'three-layered cake'. This dissertation is not so much concerned with the ingredients of the cake, but with the Cape Supreme Court which was used to 'bake' the third layer, and the judges who were employed to supervise the task. However, in order to wet the appetites of the legal gourmets, an attempt has been made to analyse the ingredient of judicial precedent, and to serve it up in the form of 'icing'. A survey of the traditional source materials utilized by lawyers, revealed a paucity of publications on the history of the Cape Supreme Court and on the early stages in the development of judicial precedent. It was therefore necessary to utilize archival material, government publications and unpublished theses. In approaching the subject, Hahlo and Kahn's concise survey proved to be an ideal starting point for conducting the investigation. Buttressed with Walker's biography of Lord de Villier's, 3 it was possible to obtain an overall picture of the developments which occurred during the period under consideration. 2026-02-19T10:51:58Z 2026-02-19T10:51:58Z 1986 2026-02-19T10:47:04Z Thesis / Dissertation Masters Masters http://hdl.handle.net/11427/42866 en eng application/pdf Centre for Law and Society Faculty of Law University of Cape Town
spellingShingle Cape supreme court
Judicial precedent
1827-1910
Fine, Hilton Basil
The history of the Cape supreme court and its role in the development of judicial precedent for the period 1827-1910
thesis_degree_str Master's
title The history of the Cape supreme court and its role in the development of judicial precedent for the period 1827-1910
title_full The history of the Cape supreme court and its role in the development of judicial precedent for the period 1827-1910
title_fullStr The history of the Cape supreme court and its role in the development of judicial precedent for the period 1827-1910
title_full_unstemmed The history of the Cape supreme court and its role in the development of judicial precedent for the period 1827-1910
title_short The history of the Cape supreme court and its role in the development of judicial precedent for the period 1827-1910
title_sort history of the cape supreme court and its role in the development of judicial precedent for the period 1827 1910
topic Cape supreme court
Judicial precedent
1827-1910
url http://hdl.handle.net/11427/42866
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