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99 S. African L.J. 38 (1982)
Legal Chauvinism, Executive-Mindedness and Justice - L. C. Steyn's Impact on South African Law

handle is hein.journals/soaf99 and id is 50 raw text is: LEGAL CHAUVINISM, EXECUTIVE- MINDEDNESS AND JUSTICE- L C STEYN'S IMPACT ON SOUTH AFRICAN LAW I FROM RECONSTRUCTION TO SUPREMACY He came from the Free State. Born on a farm in the southern- most of the two former Boer Republics only eighteen months after British hegemony was established over the whole of southern Africa, he spent his early childhood in the difficult 'reconstruction' years of what had become the Orange River Colony. He was not yet 7 when the political unification of South Africa took place in 1910. The country's Afrikaner minority was embattled on two fronts. The numerically overwhelming Black population, displaced over the previous century from the fertile plains of the interior by northwards-migrating bands of armed Boer trekkers, still consti- tuted a formidable threat despite its military and political emascula- tion. And -within the White community the British victory over the Boer states in the war of 1899-1902 threatened to portend the cultural and political eclipse of the Afrikaner people. As it hap- pened, the policy of deliberate anglicization in the White schools and in the structures of government did not succeed, partially because it was never persisted in with any vigour or determina- tion-but partially, also, because those subjected to it resisted it with passion. In the Orange River Colony special schools were founded by Afrikaner nationalists to preserve in the next generation the group's outlook and values through exposure to what was called 'Christian National Education'. The Afrikaner's agony of this period, both spiritual and material, cannot but have had a formative impact on the mind of the young Lucas Cornelius Steyn. At Stellenbosch University-as the Victoria College had in 1916 become-Steyn altered his initial ambition of qualifying for the ministry, and switched to law. His arrival at Stellenbosch coincided with the appointment there in 1921 of two professors, H D J Bodenstein and W M R Malherbe, who were to do vital work in retaining the Roman-Dutch elements of South African law. They were not to be disappointed in their pupil. His prodigious talents found expression in a brilliant career in the public service, which he

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