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By Due Process of Law
By
Ian Loveland
Description
The South African
case of Harris v. (Donges) Minister of the Interior is one familiar
to most students of British constitutional law. The case was
triggered by the South African government’s attempt in the
1950s to disenfranchise non-white voters on the Cape province. It is
still referred to as the case which illustrates that as a matter of
constitutional doctrine it is not possible for the United Kingdom
Parliament to produce a statute which limits the powers of successive
Parliaments.
The purpose of
this book is twofold. First of all it offers a rather fuller picture
of the story lying behind the Harris litigation,and the process of
British acquisition of and dis-engagement from the government of its
‘white’ colonies in southern Africa as well as the
ensuing emergence and consolidation of apartheid as a system of
political and social organisation. Secondly the book attempts to use
the South African experience to address broader contemporary British
concerns about the nature of our Constitution and the role of the
courts and legislature in making the Constitution work. In pursuing
this second aim, the author has sought to create a counterweight to
the traditional marginalistion of constitutional law and theory
within the British polity. The Harris saga conveys better than any
episode of British political history the enormous significance of the
choices a country makes (or fails to make) when it embarks upon the
task of creating or revising its constitutional arrangements. This,
then, is a searching re-examination of the fundamentals of
constitution-making, written in the light of the British government’s
commitment to promoting wholesale constitutional reform.
Ian Loveland is a
Professor at City University, London.
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
Table of Cases
Table of
Statutes
1 The European
Colonisation of Southern Africa 1
2 The Boer
Wars 26
3 Securing a
White Peace 62
4 The Act of
Union 1909 99
5 From Autonomy
to Independence 132
6 Disenfranchising
the \\\'African\\\' 179
7 Harris v Donges
(Minister of the Interior) No. 1: The Immediate Context 226
8 Harris v Donges
(Minister of the Interior) No. 1: The Litigation 260
9 Harris v
Minister of the Interior No. 2 301
10 Collins v
Minister of the Interior 336
11 Constitutionalism,
Parliamentary Sovereignty and the Common Law 384
Bibliography 415
Index 423
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