Hahlo and Khan have aptly described South African law as a ‘three-layered cake’. This dissertation is not so much concerned with the ingredients of the cake, but with the Cape Supreme Court which was used to ‘bake’ the third layer, and the judges who were employed to supervise the task. However, in order t wet the appetites of the legal gourmets, an attempt has been made to analyse the ingredient of judicial precedent, and to serve it up in the form of ‘icing’.