Sources
- Pillay v Nagan 2001 (1) SA 410 (D).
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In Pillay v Nagan, an important case in the South African law of succession, Nagan forged his mother's will and subsequently told people that he had done so. His siblings then approached the court to declare Nagan unworthy of inheriting. The court held that Nagan's fraudulent act was sufficient to declare him unworthy of inheriting.
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South Africa has a 'hybrid' or 'mixed' legal system, formed by the interweaving of a number of distinct legal traditions: a civil law system inherited from the Dutch, a common law system inherited from the British, and a customary law system inherited from indigenous Africans. These traditions have had a complex interrelationship, with the English influence most apparent in procedural aspects of the legal system and methods of adjudication, and the Roman-Dutch influence most visible in its substantive private law. As a general rule, South Africa follows English law in both criminal and civil procedure, company law, constitutional law and the law of evidence; while Roman-Dutch common law is followed in the South African contract law, law of delict (tort), law of persons, law of things, family law, etc. With the commencement in 1994 of the interim Constitution, and in 1997 its replacement, the final Constitution, another strand has been added to this weave.
Navanethem "Navi" Pillay is a South African jurist who served as the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2008 to 2014. A South African of Indian Tamil origin, Pillay was the first non-white woman judge of the High Court of South Africa. She has also served as a judge of the International Criminal Court and President of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Her four-year term as High Commissioner for Human Rights began on 1 September 2008 and was extended an additional two years in 2012. In September 2014 Prince Zeid bin Ra'ad succeeded her in her position as High Commissioner for Human Rights. In April 2015, Pillay became the 16th Commissioner of the International Commission Against the Death Penalty. She is also one of the 25 leading figures on the Information and Democracy Commission launched by Reporters Without Borders.
Durban Girls' High School is a public high school for girls located in Glenwood, a suburb of Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. It was founded in 1882 and is home to over 1200 students.
The law of persons in South Africa regulates the birth, private-law status and the death of a natural person. It determines the requirements and qualifications for legal subjectivity in South Africa, and the rights and responsibilities that attach to it.
The South African law of succession prescribes the rules which determine the devolution of a person's estate after his death, and all matters incidental thereto. It identifies the beneficiaries who are entitled to succeed to the deceased's estate, and the extent of the benefits they are to receive, and determines the different rights and duties that persons may have in a deceased's estate. It forms part of private law.
Daniels v Campbell NO and Others, an important case in South African family law and law of succession, was heard in the Constitutional Court on 6 November 2003 and decided on 11 March 2004. The court was unanimous that the constitutional right to equality requires that rights of intestate inheritance and maintenance must be extended to the surviving partners of de facto monogamous Muslim marriages, even though such marriages are not recognised under the Marriage Act, 1961.
Hassam v Jacobs NO and Others, an important case in South African family law and law of succession, was heard in the Constitutional Court of South Africa on 19 February 2009 and decided on 15 July 2009. It concerned the proprietary consequences of polygynous Muslim marriage in the context of intestate succession.
Bhe and Others v Magistrate, Khayelitsha and Others; Shibi v Sithole and Others; SA Human Rights Commission and Another v President of the RSA and Another was an important case in South African customary law.
Gory v Kolver NO is a decision of the Constitutional Court of South Africa which ruled that a same-sex life partner was entitled to inherit the estate of the other partner who died intestate.
Ex Parte Graham 1963 (4) SA 145 (D) is an important case in the South African law of persons and succession. Briefly, the deceased left a will stipulating that her adopted son would inherit her estate in the event of her death. The will added, however, that, if he predeceased her, her mother would inherit the estate.
In L. Taylor v AE Pim, an important case in the South African law of succession.
The facts of the case in Casey v The Master, an important case in the South African law of succession, the deceased and her husband were married in community of property and had a joint will, whereby both spouses bequeathed their half of the joint estate to each other. Being safety-conscious, each night the deceased's husband slept with a loaded revolver under his pillow. One night the revolver accidentally went off while the couple was sleeping; the bullet struck the deceased, who subsequently died. The deceased's husband was convicted of culpable homicide.
In Ex Parte Steenkamp and Steenkamp, an important case in the South African law of succession, Mr. and Mrs. K. bequeathed a farm and certain movable property to their children born and to be born of their daughter. Their son-in-law subsequently murdered Mr. and Mrs. K. At the time of their deaths, Mr. and Mrs. K's daughter and son-in-law had two children, and the daughter was pregnant with a third child. The nasciturus was born alive, but died when it was six months old. In terms of the Intestate Succession Act, Mr. and Mrs. K.’s daughter and son-in-law would inherit from their infant child.
Ex Parte Meier en Andere, an important case in South African succession law, concerned an application for the appointment of a curator bonis to manage the estate of a patient, one Armin Karel Meier. An order was also claimed that the patient was entitled to inherit from his father's estate. It appeared that the patient, while mentally disturbed, had on May 18, 1977, shot and killed his father, in "an apparently unmotivated, cold-blooded shooting." Utilising the maxim “waar daar geen skuld is nie, is daar geen stra nie”—where there is no fault, there is no punishment—the court held that the patient was not an indignus, and that he lacked the criminal responsibility to be found guilty of the crime. Accordingly, he was entitled to inherit from his father's estate.
In Makhanya v Minister of Finance (2001), an important case in the South African law of succession, the deceased (R) was a civil servant who was murdered by his wife. In terms of the Governmental Services Act, his wife was entitled to receive his pension benefits. R's daughter, however, approached the court to declare the deceased's wife unworthy of inheriting. The court considered the question of whether the bloedige hand principle could be extended to statutory principles. The court held that public policy dictates that the principle should not be limited and accordingly extended its application to the statute.
In Danielz v De Wet, an important case in the South African law of succession, Danielz was the executor of De Wet's estate. Danielz sought an order declaring the deceased's widow unworthy of inheriting. The reason for this was that the widow had hired an accomplice to assault the deceased and as a result of the assault, the deceased died.
In Govender v Ragavayah, an important case in the South African law of succession, the applicant was a woman married in terms of Hindu rites, whose husband had died intestate. Accordingly, the parents of her husband stood to inherit his estate. The court noted that Hindu marriages were not recognised in South African law, which violated section 9 of the Constitution. Accordingly, the court ordered that the definition of “spouse” in section 1 of the Intestate Succession Act include the surviving spouse of a monogamous Hindu marriage. It is important to note that the ambit of this judgment was restricted to de facto monogamous Hindu marriages.
In Ex Parte Maurice, an important case in South African succession law, the facts were these: A few weeks before his death, the deceased forwarded a draft of his will in his own handwriting to a building society, along with a letter asking them to “knock this document into shape and finalise it in legal jargon.” The question before the court was whether it should exercise its discretion to declare the will valid, even though it had not been signed by any witnesses, etc. The court held that there are three requirements which must be fulfilled before condonation is given:
In Ex Parte Lutchman, an important case in South African succession law, the deceased had left certain property to his six children in equal shares in a validly executed will. One of the deceased's children took out three life insurance policies on his father's life and explained to his father that in order for him to get the benefits of the policies when he died, he must draft a new will. The only provision in the second will was that the son was appointed the sole heir of the insurance policies, so he did not deal with any of the rest of his estate. Furthermore, he accidentally included a revocation clause in the new will, so its effect was that everything except the insurance policies devolved according to the law of intestate succession. At that stage, extra-marital children of persons marriage in terms of Hindu custom could not inherit intestate. The children of the deceased approached the court to declare the second will invalid insofar as it revoked the previous will. The court held that the revocation clause in the second will was obviously a mistake, so this clause was held to be pro non scripto.
Intestate succession in South African law takes place whenever the deceased leaves property which has not been disposed of by valid testamentary instrument. In other words, the law of intestate succession applies only: