MIXED AND MIXING SYSTEMS WORLDWIDE: A PREFACE

This issue of the Potchefstroom Electronic Law Journal (South Africa) sees thepublication of a selection of articles derived from the Third International Congress ofthe World Society of Mixed Jurisdiction Jurists (WSMJJ). That Congress was held atthe Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel in the summer of 2011. It reflected athriving Society consolidating its core scholarship on classical mixed jurisdictions(Israel, Louisiana, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Quebec, Scotland, and South Africa)while reaching to new horizons (including Cyprus, Hong Kong and Macau, Malta,Nepal, etc). This publication reflects in microcosm the complexity of contemporaryscholarship on mixed and plural legal systems. This complexity is, of course, wellunderstoodby South African jurists whose system is derived both from the dominantEuropean traditions as well as from African customary systems, including both thosethat make up part of the official law of the state as well as those non-state norms thatcontinue to be important in the daily lives of many South Africans

Mixed and Mixing Systems Worldwide: A Preface

  This issue of the Potchefstroom Electronic Law Journal (South Africa) sees the publication of a selection of articles derived from the Third International Congress of the World Society of Mixed Jurisdiction Jurists (WSMJJ). That Congress was held at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel in the summer of 2011. It reflected a thriving Society consolidating its core scholarship on classical mixed jurisdictions (Israel, Louisiana, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Quebec, Scotland, and South Africa) while reaching to new horizons (including Cyprus, Hong Kong and Macau, Malta, Nepal, etc). This publication reflects in microcosm the complexity of contemporary scholarship on mixed and plural legal systems. This complexity is, of course, well-understood by South African jurists whose system is derived both from the dominant European traditions as well as from African customary systems, including both those that make up part of the official law of the state as well as those non-state norms that continue to be important in the daily lives of many South Africans.    &nbsp

\u27The law touches us but here and there, and now and then\u27 : Edmund Burke, law, and legal theory

Edmund Burke’s training in, knowledge of, and appreciation for, law is generally recognised. Indeed, as RB McDowell has written, while Burke may, during short bouts of irritation, have impulsively expressed intense exasperation with lawyers, their practices, procedures and prejudices, [but he] nevertheless remained convinced that the law, with all its limitations, must be regarded with reverence and that lawyers, with all their faults, performed functions of the utmost value to the community.PUBLISHEDNot peer reviewe