Chief Justice designate Sandile Ngcobo on Thursday called on law students and academics to engage in debate on South Africa's indigenous law, saying that it needed to be developed.

Addressing law students and lecturers at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, the recently appointed judge president said that like any other laws, indigenous law was essential because it regulated the lives of people.

"Where possible, courts should try and develop indigenous law instead of destroying it. Where it is consistent with the Bill of Rights, courts have a responsibility to develop it within the confines of the law."

Ngcobo urged law students and lecturers to engage in the debates for the development of customary law, saying that the constitution recognised it.

He said the indigenous law must be understood in the context of the transformation of the society from the one, which was characterised by racial injustice into one founded on human dignity.

The colonial and apartheid governments had described indigenous law as illicit and immoral and had refused to recognise it.

Ngcobo said it was dangerous to simply destroy some rules of traditional law, saying that even if you destroy them, people would continue to use them.

"We need to develop them in line with the constitution because indigenous law is a dynamic system that has its own values."