“Native Courts” and the Limits of the Law in Colonial Sudan: Ambiguity as Strategy

2013 ◽  
Vol 38 (04) ◽  
pp. 973-992 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Adam Sachs
Keyword(s):  
Legal Reform ◽  
State Building ◽  
Judicial System ◽  
Strategic Ambiguity ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
Building Projects ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
Way Of Thinking ◽  
The Law ◽  
Colonial Government

This article offers a way of thinking about colonial-era legal reform that departs from traditional narratives by highlighting the importance of legal ambiguity in state building projects. Following the establishment of “Native Administration” in the Sudan in the early 1920s, the British colonial government conferred expansive judicial and administrative powers on tribal sheikhs and nazirs (chiefs), while at the same time discouraging many attempts to formalize or standardize those powers, preferring instead that they remain informal and undefined. This policy, which I term “strategic ambiguity,” emerged out of a belief that tribal leaders would be more effective if they possessed maximum discretion and judicial flexibility, even though the result was a colonial government woefully ill-informed about much of its own judicial system. These findings point to a way of thinking about colonial-era legal reform in which governmental ignorance was actually productive of sovereignty, and not an obstacle to it.

Milton and Legal Reform

2016 ◽  
Vol 69 (2) ◽  
pp. 529-565 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alison A. Chapman
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
John Milton ◽  
Legal Education ◽  
Legal Reform ◽  
Judicial System ◽  
The Law ◽  
Local Courts ◽  
Political Pamphlets ◽  
Contemporary Context

AbstractThe second half of the seventeenth century was the first great period of legal reform in England’s history. This article situates John Milton in relationship to this contemporary context, arguing that he comments frequently on the need to change England’s laws and displays a finely tuned awareness of some of the major legal debates of his time. This article surveys Milton’s writings about the law and legal education, and it concludes by examining his 1659–60 political pamphlets where he calls for reform of the judicial system and the establishment of local courts.

scholarly journals What Has Changed? A Critical Analysis of the Law of Sedition and the Press in Nigeria since 1914

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. p20
Author(s):  
Chinedu C. Odoemelam ◽  
Uche V. Ebeze ◽  
Okorom E. Morgan ◽  
Daniel N. Okwudiogor
Keyword(s):  
Press Freedom ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Press ◽  
Independent States ◽  
The Media ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
The Law ◽  
Political Milieu ◽  
The One ◽  
Colonial Government

This study is situated within the normative theoretical framework, which focuses on the press in nations where the press is expected to assume the coloration of the political milieu within which it finds itself. The British colonial masters discovered the power of the press in the early 16th century and devised numerous schemes to restrict publication. Such policies were extended to her majesty’s colonies; for instance, the law of sedition in Nigeria. Freedom of the press is a right but it is a right that has been won only through many hard-fought legal battles like the one fought by John Peter Zenger in the seditious trial of 1735. There were several such trials for sedition in the colonies, and despite the acquittal of John Peter Zenger, the British colonial government went ahead to adopt such laws in her colonial territories. This was exemplified in the seditious offence ordinance that was in force in 1909 in Southern Nigeria. This study adopts the historical, legal research and critical paradigm technique to examine how the law of sedition has fared in inhibiting press freedom in Nigeria since 1914. The study provides an understanding of how colonial influence may affect laws regulating how the media function in independent States.

The Law and Practice Relating to the Adoption of Children in Tanzania

1988 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 124-163
Author(s):  
Barthazar A. Rwezaura ◽  
Ulrike Wanitzek
Keyword(s):  
Family Law ◽  
Cultural Background ◽  
Academic Discourse ◽  
Statistical Information ◽  
Judicial Interpretation ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
High Court ◽  
Exclusive Jurisdiction ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
The Law

The law relating to the adoption of children in Tanzania has, since its inception, remained obscure. It has neither received judicial interpretation comparable to other branches of family law nor has it been a subject of academic discourse. This is so despite the fact that the first adoption legislation was introduced in colonial Tanganyika as early as 1942, was repealed and re-enacted in 1953 and has remained in force ever since.Some statistical information regarding how this legislation has been utilised by the population would assist in further elaboration of the above contention. During the first 18 years of the operation of the Ordinance, i.e. from 1944 to the end of the British colonial era in 1961, the High Court of Tanganyika, which under the Ordinance had exclusive jurisdiction to hear adoption applications, made a total of 130 adoption orders. This works out to an average of seven adoption orders per year. With regard to the cultural background of the applicants, so far as this could be ascertained, Europeans formed the majority accounting for about two thirds while members of the Asiatic communities accounted for about one third of the total number of adoption orders granted by the High Court. The number of African applicants was comparatively insignificant.After independence, the picture changed considerably, both in terms of volume of adoption applications and the cultural background of the leading applicants.

CIVIL AND LEGAL LIABILITY OF JUDGES

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yaroslav Skoromnyy ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Pension System ◽  
Legal Liability ◽  
Judicial System ◽  
Constitutional Court ◽  
Model Code ◽  
European Court ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Right

The article presents the conceptual foundations of bringing judges to civil and legal liability. It was found that the civil and legal liability of judges is one of the types of legal liability of judges. It is determined that the legislation of Ukraine provides for a clearly delineated list of the main cases (grounds) for which the state is liable for damages for damage caused to a legal entity and an individual by illegal actions of a judge as a result of the administration of justice. It has been proved that bringing judges to civil and legal liability, in particular on the basis of the right of recourse, provides for the payment of just compensation in accordance with the decision of the European Court of Human Rights. It was established that the bringing of judges to civil and legal liability in Ukraine is regulated by such legislative documents as the Constitution of Ukraine, the Civil Code of Ukraine, the Explanatory Note to the European Charter on the Status of Judges (Model Code), the Law of Ukraine «On the Judicial System and the Status of Judges», the Law of Ukraine «On the procedure for compensation for harm caused to a citizen by illegal actions of bodies carrying out operational-search activities, pre-trial investigation bodies, prosecutors and courts», Decision of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine in the case on the constitutional submission of the Supreme Court of Ukraine regarding the compliance of the Constitution of Ukraine (constitutionality) of certain provisions of Article 2, paragraph two of clause II «Final and transitional provisions» of the Law of Ukraine «On measures to legislatively ensure the reform of the pension system», Article 138 of the Law of Ukraine «On the judicial system and the status of judges» (the case on changes in the conditions for the payment of pensions and monthly living known salaries of judges lagging behind in these), the Law of Ukraine «On the implementation of decisions and the application of the practice of the European Court of Human Rights».

Making Africa Legible

2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 61-78
Author(s):  
Caitlyn Bolton
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Generation Gap ◽  
Educational Reforms ◽  
Colonial Era ◽  
African Languages ◽  
Language Standardization ◽  
Children And Parents ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
European Colonialism ◽  
Local Languages

European colonialism and missionization in Africa initiated a massive orthographic shift across the continent, as local languages that had been written for centuries in Arabic letters were forcibly re-written in Roman orthography through language standardization reforms and the introduction of colonial public schools. Using early missionary grammars promoting the “conversion of Africa from the East,” British colonial standardization policies and educational reforms, as well as petitions and newspaper editorials by the local Swahilispeaking community, I trace the story of the Romanization of Swahili in Zanzibar, the site chosen as the standard Swahili dialect. While the Romanization of African languages such as Swahili was part of a project of making Africa legible to Europeans during the colonial era, the resulting generation gap as children and parents read different letters made Africa more illegible to Africans themselves.

Judicial Legislation

1989 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-18
Author(s):  
Oliver Aylmerton
Keyword(s):  
Judicial System ◽  
Democratic Process ◽  
Central Topic ◽  
The People ◽  
Parliamentary Debate ◽  
The Law ◽  
Elected Representatives

The author describes the main characteristics of the English judicial system and its methodology. A central topic is the so-called judicial legislation, as is illustrated by the developing case lawwith respect to the tort of negligence. The method has the twin advantages of flexibility and pragmatism and it also has the advantages of speed. But there is a minus side also. First, the development of the law in this way can only be achieved at the expense of certainty. Secondly, it involves the alteration of the law, sometimes a quite radical alteration, without any extensive consideration of the practical and economic results such as would take place in the course of parliamentary scrutiny and debate. Judges are not the elected representatives of the people and the methodology of English Judges which results in the development and alteration of the law without the benefit of parliamentary debate may not perhaps be altogether a satisfactory democratic process to a constitutional purist.

scholarly journals State-Building, Power-Sharing Discourse, and Political Autonomy of Minorities within Ethno-Nationalist Gloom in Sri Lanka

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 88
Author(s):  
Mohammad Agus Yusoff ◽  
Athambawa Sarjoon ◽  
Abd Rashid Abdul Wahab
Keyword(s):  
Sri Lanka ◽  
State Building ◽  
Power Sharing ◽  
Building Projects ◽  
Political Autonomy ◽  
Minority Ethnic Groups ◽  
Building Process ◽  
Ultimate Result ◽  
Major Factors ◽  
The Right

Positioning minority concerns within a power-sharing mechanism is a key issue that has been influential in Sri Lanka’s modern state-building process experimented from the later part of the colonial period. Throughout the post-independent era, most state-building projects were critically debated with regard to sharing political autonomy between the majority Sinhalese and the minorities. This study attempts to locate the claims and concerns of minorities seeking political autonomy in Sri Lanka’s state-building and power-sharing discourse. The study found that the state-building process in Sri Lanka has always been a struggle between establishing a majoritarian-ethno-nationalist hegemonic state system and preserving the right of minority ethnic groups to political power-sharing. The study further found that (a) insufficient emphasis given towards understanding power-sharing and federalism as a means to accommodate diverse interests and rights, including the political autonomy rights of minorities, (b) the opportunistic politics of opposition parties, and (c) the ethno-nationalist agenda of the majority Sinhalese were the major factors that have induced to undermine the minorities’ claims for political autonomy. The ultimate result of this is the continuous struggles by minorities to situate their political autonomy demands within Sri Lanka’s state-building and power-sharing discourse.

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