Juleiga Daniels's husband died intestate in 1994; the main item in the deceased's estate was the couple's home in Cape Town.

Daniels approached the High Court of South Africa for an order declaring that she was the spouse and survivor of the deceased, or, alternatively, for an order declaring that the Intestate Succession Act and Maintenance of Surviving Spouses Act were unconstitutional to the extent that they discriminated unfairly against Muslim marriages.

She therefore granted the alternative relief sought by Daniels and instructed that, until such time as the legislature recognised the Muslim personal law of succession in a manner consistent with the Constitution, certain provisions should be read into the Acts to ensure that their protections extended to "a husband or wife married in accordance with Muslim rites in a de facto monogamous union".

The historic exclusion in South Africa flowed not from the courts' giving the word its ordinary meaning but from a linguistically-strained usage and from cultural and racial prejudices.

The same group joined in a separate concurring judgment filed by Justice Sandile Ngcobo, which elaborated on how the same conclusion could be reached by means of section 39(2) of the Constitution.