Courts of South Africa - High Courts

High Courts

The High Courts are courts of general jurisdiction for their designated areas. They hear appeals from the Magistrates' Courts within their area, and act as a court of first instance for cases outside the jurisdiction of the Magistrates' Courts. The present divisions of the High Court are:

• Eastern Cape High Court, Bhisho
• Eastern Cape High Court, Grahamstown
• Eastern Cape High Court, Mthatha
• Eastern Cape High Court, Port Elizabeth
• Free State High Court, Bloemfontein
• North Gauteng High Court, Pretoria
• South Gauteng High Court, Johannesburg
• KwaZulu-Natal High Court, Durban
• KwaZulu-Natal High Court, Pietermaritzburg
• Limpopo High Court, Thohoyandou
• North West High Court, Mafikeng
• Northern Cape High Court, Kimberley
• Western Cape High Court, Cape Town

The origins of the High Courts lie in the Supreme Courts of the four colonies (the Cape Colony, Transvaal Colony, Natal Colony and Orange River Colony) from which the Union of South Africa was formed; these became provincial divisions of the Supreme Court of South Africa. When the bantustans of Transkei, Bophuthatswana, Venda and Ciskei received nominal independence, they established their own Supreme Courts; when the bantustans were re-integrated into South Africa on 27 April 1994 these courts also became provincial divisions of the Supreme Court of South Africa.

The 1996 Constitution renamed the provincial and local divisions of the Supreme Court to High Courts. Since that time some changes have been made to rationalise the areas of jurisdiction of the courts; the courts have also been renamed in accordance with the names of the new provinces. The Superior Courts Bill introduced in Parliament in 2011 will merge the courts to form single division for each province, and create entirely new courts in Limpopo and Mpumalanga.