Southern Rhodesia. By the Southern Rhodesia Order in Council of October 20, 1898, s. 49 (2), the law of Cape Colony as it stood on June 10, 1891, applies in Southern Rhodesia, except so far as that law has been modified by any Order in Council, Proclamation, Regulation or Ordinance in force at the date of the commencement of the Order.
Transvaal and Orange Free State. In the Republics the Roman-Dutch Law remained in force almost unaltered up to the date of annexation.[1] It is continued in the Orange River Colony (now, once more, the Free State) by Proclamation No. 3 of 1902, s. 1, and in the Transvaal by Proclamation No. 14 of 1902, s. 17. But in each of the new Colonies extensive alterations have been made so as to bring the law into closer harmony with the system obtaining in the adjoining territories.
Swaziland. By Proclamation of February 22, 1907, the Roman-Dutch common law, save in so far as the same has been modified by statute, is law in Swaziland.
The Union of South Africa.
By the South Africa Act, 1909 (9 Edw. 7, ch. 9), which took effect on May 31, 1910, the four Colonies of the Cape of Good Hope, Natal, the Transvaal, and the Orange River Colony[2] were united in a Legislative Union under one Government under the name of the Union of South Africa (s. 4), and became original provinces of the Union under the names of Cape of Good Hope, Natal, Transvaal, and Orange Free State respectively. Subject to the provisions of the Act, all laws[3] in force in the several Colonies at the estabUshment of the Union are continued in force in the respective provinces until repealed or amended by the Parliament of the Union, or by the provincial- ↑ A resolution of the Volksraad of the South African Republic of September 19, 1859, gave statutory authority to the legal treatise of Van der Linden, which, failing the commentaries of Simon van Leeuwen and the Introduction of Hugo de Groot, were to be binding. This quaint enactment was repealed by Tr. Procl. No. 34 of 1901.
- ↑ On annexation to the British Crown (May 31, 1902), the Orange Free State became the Orange River Colony.
- ↑ ‘By the word Laws in that section the Legislature meant Statutes, and never intended that the section should apply to Judge-made Law.’ Webster v. Ellison [1911] A. D. at p. 99, per Solomon J.
