South Africa’s legal system is built on the following cornerstones:

• legislation (acts, statutes or laws) as developed and promulgated by Parliament;
• precedent (court decisions) You will often hear judges refer to previous court  case judgements where similar findings were made;
• common law; 
• indigenous law, stemming from the different communities and cultures in our society;
• as well as the Constitution.

What is common law? The Dutch brought the Roman Dutch law of the 16th and 17th century to South Africa. Then the British followed with the English law and now it all forms part of our common law system. Murder, robbery and theft are examples of the common law.

Common law is applicable to everyone; however statutory law is stronger than common law. Common law only applies when there is no statutory law about an issue before the court. Many of the legal principles we live by comes from the common law.

References to the principles of common law can be found everywhere in our legislation, including the Short-term and Long-term insurance acts. Car insurance is no exception. Terms such as subrogation, the common law test of materiality and many terms relating to liability insurance have their origins in the common law.