The Northern Cape Division of the

High Court of South Africa The High Court of South Africa is a superior court of law in South Africa. It is divided into nine provincial divisions, some of which sit in more than one location. Each High Court division has general jurisdiction over a defined geographical ...

(formerly named the Northern Cape High Court and the Northern Cape Provincial Division, and commonly known as the Kimberley High Court) is a superior

court of law A court is any person or institution, often as a government institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in accordan ...

with

general jurisdiction {{Globalize, article, USA, 2name=the United States, date=December 2010 A court of general jurisdiction is a court with authority to hear cases of all kinds – criminal, civil, family, probate, and so forth. United States All federal courts ar ...

over the Northern Cape province of

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the Atlantic Ocean, South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the ...

. The division sits at Kimberley.

History

A Supreme Court was created for the British colony of

Griqualand West Griqualand West is an area of central South Africa with an area of 40,000 km2 that now forms part of the Northern Cape Province. It was inhabited by the Griqua people – a semi-nomadic, Afrikaans-speaking nation of mixed-race origin, wh ...

by proclamation in 1871. The

Cape Colony The Cape Colony ( nl, Kaapkolonie), also known as the Cape of Good Hope, was a British colony in present-day South Africa named after the Cape of Good Hope, which existed from 1795 to 1802, and again from 1806 to 1910, when it united with t ...

annexed Griqualand West according to the

Griqualand West Annexation Act The Griqualand West Annexation Act (Act 39 of 1877), was the act, passed in the Cape Colony Parliament on 27 July 1877, authorising the union of the Cape Colony with Griqualand West. Background Griqualand West, one of the states created by the se ...

on 27 July 1877, with the date for annexation set for 18 October 1880. According to this act, the court was subordinated to the

Cape Supreme Court The Western Cape Division of the High Court of South Africa (previously named the Cape Provincial Division and the Western Cape High Court, and commonly known as the Cape High Court) is a superior court of law with general jurisdiction over th ...

and became known as the High Court of Griqualand West. On the creation of the Union of South Africa it became the Griqualand West Local Division of the Supreme Court of South Africa and remained subordinate to the Cape Provincial Division. In 1969 it became a provincial division in its own right as the Northern Cape Provincial Division. In 1997, on the adoption of the current

Constitution of South Africa The Constitution of South Africa is the supreme law of the Republic of South Africa. It provides the legal foundation for the existence of the republic, it sets out the rights and duties of its citizens, and defines the structure of the Gover ...

, it became a High Court, and in 2009 it was renamed the Northern Cape High Court by the

Renaming of High Courts Act Renaming may refer to: Place names * Geographical renaming * Lists of renamed places Computing * Batch renaming * Great Renaming * Register renaming * Rename (computing) In computing, rename refers to the altering of a name of a file. This ...

. In 2013, in the restructuring brought about by the Superior Courts Act, it became the Northern Cape Division of the High Court of South Africa.

References

External links

Decisions of the Northern Cape Division
{{Use dmy dates, date=November 2019 High Court of South Africa High Court Kimberley, Northern Cape 1871 establishments in Griqualand West Courts and tribunals established in 1871