ADVANCED INDIGENOUS LAW LCP4804- EXAM

ADVANCED INDIGENOUS LAW LCP4804- EXAM QUESTION 1 (a) According to section one of the Recognition of Customary Marriages Act customary law means "the customs and usages traditionally observed amongst the indigenous African people of South Africa and form part of the culture of those people." In Alexkor v The Richtersveld Community & Others the Constitutional court defined the nature and concept of customary law as: The nature and the content of the rights that the Richtersveld Community held in the subject land prior to annexation must be determined with reference to indigenous law. That is the law which governed its rights. The Privy Council has held that the dispute between indigenous people such as the right to occupy a piece of land has to be determined according to indigenous law without importing English conceptions of property law. Indigenous law used to be seen as part of the common law, now it is seen as an integral part of our law. Its validity depends upon the Constitution and not the common law. The courts are obliged by section 211(3) of the Constitution to apply indigenous law wherever it is applicable. The Constitution recognizes the originality and distinctiveness of indigenous law as an independent so