Most countries of the world have at one time or another been confronted with questions of what principles or rules should guide the courts in readjusting the property rights of spouses at the dissolution of their marriage. Virtually all civilised countries have accepted marriage as an equal partnership of two legally equal individuals to which each one of them contributes in one way or another. Most policy makers agree that the partners contribute to the marriage through their division of labour and that these contributions although not equal in absolute terms are nonetheless of equal relative value to the welfare of the family.

This recognition of the equal worth and equal importance of the two spouses to a marriage relationship has had profound effects on the matrimonial property regimes of numerous countries which have had to tackle the problem of the construction of a fair and equitable legal formula for the reallocation of matrimonial property rights at the dissolution of marriage. The fundamental problem has been whether a fair and equitable system is achieved by means of fixed rules of apportionment or through flexible discretionary judicial powers exercisable at the discretion of courts, in the light of the individual circumstances of each case.

The Land Use Act, 1978 is, indeed, a “giant-killer”. In the recent case of Savannah Bank of Nigeria Limited and Another v. Ammel Ajilo and Another a learned Justice of the Supreme Court of Nigeria seized the opportunity to indict a doyen of the Nigerian Bar for a seeming misapprehension of the revolutionary effect of the Act on the land tenurial system of the country. But we hasten to point out that the Act is not the problem child only of the Bar, for the Bench is not free from the same misapprehension for which this learned gentleman of the Bar was indicted. Indeed, there is mounting evidence from the conflicting opinions of our courts on the Act that the latter is the “Achilles' heel” also of the Bench. One glaring instance: while the Supreme Court in recognition of group holdings under customary law conceded communal title to a right of occupancy under the Act to a community in the case of Chief S.U. Ojeme and Others v. His Highness Momodu II and Others the Court of Appeal expressed the contrary view in the subsequent case of L.S.D.P.C. and Others v.

Adultery is one of the cardinal sins in the Ten Commandments and, despite the modern apparently relaxed attitude towards sexual intercourse, it has remained one of the main reasons for marriage breakdowns. Its seriousness as a matrimonial offence is clearly reflected in the fact that originally it was the only permitted ground for divorce under English Law. Of particular gravity was adultery by a wife which was described as being unforgivable by a husband, for while a husband could divorce his wife on the sole basis of her adultery, a wife had to prove other material facts in addition to her husban's adultery in order to obtain a similar relief.

Even under customary law, adultery, particularly by a wife, was treated as a sin against the ancestral gods and required the performance of certain rituals to appease them and the husband and to cleanse the violated woman. Although pre-set grounds for divorce are non-existent and unnecessary at customary law, adultery may well be a vital reason why a man would want to divorce his wife. Under the Matrimonial Causes Act adultery, coupled with intolerability, is one of the listed grounds for divorce the proof of which is proof of “irretrievable breakdown” of the marriage.

The object of this article is to examine the judicial concept of adultery, intolerability and damages for adultery.

The legal profession, and legal education (which is the subject of an earlier article), in operational terms form one continuum. On the earlier occasion we depicted legal education as, in essence, referring to “experiences and training which help different kinds of people to understand and use law in society”. In more specific terms, legal education is concerned with the formal or approved stages of education and training, in preparation for service in such legal roles as: representing parties in judicial or related proceedings; giving legal advice and preparing legal documents or instruments in non-contentious matters; presiding over or participating in tribunals of a legal or quasi-legal character; representing the state in matters of a legal or quasi-legal nature; etc.

The often large body of professionals, who are the product of such a system of education, invariably necessitates the establishment of governing bodies; the enactment of regulatory legislation; the adoption of controlling practices; the fostering of certain norms and mores of professional culture; etc.

The establishment in the Gold Coast of commercial agriculture based on a permanent cultivation of the soil, the development of the mining and timber industries in the last two decades of the nineteenth century and the concession boom that these events carried in their train, created favourable conditions for capitalist development for which the private ownership of the means of production is a prerequisite. However, at that time the basic means of production in the Gold Coast, i.e. the land, was generally held in common and was not privately owned.

Colonialism, however, had the effect of establishing two systems of production in the country. The capitalist sector which became dominant was created at commercial and urban centres. The traditional communal system based on what, for want of a better term, one could call subsistence agriculture, remained at the periphery in the countryside. The dominant capitalist sector produced in its own image a class of property owners consisting of European, national and rural capitalists. Attempts by the latter to acquire lands to be privately owned gave rise to problems of insecurity of title. A machinery for land registration was thought to be the most adequate means of solving the problem.

Since 1979, there have been significant changes in the law relating to citizenship in Nigeria. These changes came with the enactment in that year of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1979. The citizenship provisions of the 1979 Constitution have been slightly modified and reenacted in the 1989 Constitution which will come into effect on October 1, 1992. In this article, we shall examine the current Nigerian law on citizenship as ordained by the 1979 Constitution as well as the changes introduced by the 1989 Constitution. This will be done against the background of the historical development of citizenship laws in the country prior to, and since independence on October 1, 1960.

In the celebrated case of Savannah Bank Limited v. Ajilo the Supreme Court of Nigeria unanimously ruled that a deemed right of occupancy under section 34(2) of the Land Use Act is the same as a right of occupancy actually granted by the Governor, with all the attendant consequences. Thus, the controversy as to whether a person who is deemed to be a holder of a right of occupancy pursuant to section 34(2) of the Act requires the prior consent of the Governor before he can transfer, mortgage, or otherwise dispose of his interest in the right of occupancy, would appear to have been finally laid to rest. Such a person needs the consent of the Governor for a valid alienation of his interest.

Can a domestic tribunal or an administrative disciplinary committee try a person for a criminal offence? The answer is clearly no. But can such a tribunal, in the exercise of its disciplinary powers, try a person for misconduct even though the acts amounting to such misconduct are in the nature of criminal offences? The Nigerian Supreme Court has given a negative answer to this latter question. The aim of this short article is to show that the answer puts “ill-legal” constraints on the administrative disciplinary powers of such tribunals.

The history of the problem dates back to 1968. In Denloye v. Medical and Dental Practitioners' Disciplinary Tribunal, counsel for the plaintiff raised the issue of the competence of a disciplinary tribunal to try a person for acts alleged to amount to infamous conduct in a professional respect where the acts were in the nature of criminal offences. Although the court did not consider the issue, it nevertheless observed (in the typical fashion of regarding English law as a palimpsest of Nigerian law) that the practice under the English Medical Act, 1956 which was that allegations of unprofessional conduct in the nature of offences were not dealt with under the Act in the first instance but were left to the courts, and, after conviction, disciplinary actions would follow, was the intention in Nigeria.

This article will analyse the legislative provisions relating to financial maintenance for women and children in six countries of southern Africa: Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe. These are the six countries involved in the Women and Law in Southern Africa research project, a comparative research project and network of researchers in the region. For the first two-year phase of the project, 1990–1991, the project is studying maintenance laws, their application and administration, and the attitudes, customs and practices which influence maintenance law in the six countries. This article is a background paper for that project, which will by analysing legislative provisions give the researchers in the project an idea of some of the various options for law reform.

In most modern legal systems the prosecution of offences is conducted by government-employed or appointed officials on behalf of the State. Nevertheless it is generally recognised that private individuals also have an important, if somewhat diminished, role to play in this process. Recent legislation introduced into one of the 21 states of Nigeria has however partially abolished the right of private prosecution except in relation to the offence of perjury. This and the additional controversy surrounding one man's attempts to prosecute two government security agents for the murder of his friend has generated a surge of interest in a topic which has for the most part been largely ignored.

This article traces from an historical perspective the role of the private prosecutor in Nigerian traditional society and under its present legal system. An attempt is then made to examine the powers, obligations and importance of the private prosecutor in Nigeria today, and to identify and suggest the checks and balances that are needed to preserve the right of the citizen to seek judicial redress by private prosecution when otherwise justice would be denied.

One of the fundamental principles underlying the Nigerian constitutional process is that of the independence of the judiciary. The concept, in its basic form, embodies the entire philosophy of constitutional democracy especially as emphasised by the preamble to the Constitution which is for “promoting the good government and welfare of all persons … on the principles of Equality, Freedom and Justice”. In a country such as Nigeria which is presently characterised by political and economic underdevelopment, it is generally considered constitutionally desirable that a viable contrivance such as the institutional separation of the judiciary from the other arms of the government is a necessary bulwark against all forms of political and social tyranny, administrative victimisation and oppression. In other words, the freedom of the judicature from any influence, whether exerted by the legislature or the executive, or even from the judiciary itself, which is capable of leading to any form of injustice, abuse, miscarriage of justice, judicial insensitivity or other court-related vices is a condition sine qua non for the establishment of a durable political order based on the rule of law and constitutionalism.

The notion of the independence of the judiciary has its philosophical ancestry in the time-honoured theory of the separation of powers, a doctrine which incidentally features prominently in the allocation of state powers under the Nigerian constitutional scheme.

The local courts of Zambia are the successors to the native courts which the British set up in Northern Rhodesia, as elsewhere in colonial Africa, to administer justice to Africans. However, while the system of native courts originally existed in parallel with the system of English-style magistrates' courts, after independence the native courts (re-named local courts) were integrated into the judicial system, with appeals lying to subordinate courts (i.e. magistrates' courts) of the first or second class. Although it was the ultimate goal of the government to have a fully professionalised judiciary (a policy adopted by Kenya in 1967), it recognised that the local courts still had an important role to play in the administration of justice, particularly in the rural areas. Twenty years later it looks as if their future is secure. If the amount of business transacted by the local courts and the paucity of appeals from their decisions provide an indication of their popularity and effectiveness, they would seem to have proved their worth.

Like their predecessors, the local courts have a limited criminal jurisdiction, but the bulk of their business is civil. They have jurisdiction in most civil matters where the claim does not exceed 200 kwacha. Some of these cases are actions for the recovery of a debt, actions for assault or actions for defamation of character (most frequently, accusations of witchcraft), but the majority of the cases could be broadly categorised as “family” cases, including divorce, adultery, seduction and inheritance claims.

This is not an article on the crime of infanticide as such. It is a footnote, as it were, to Schapera's writings on infanticide in Bechuanaland. The intention is not to go into the intricacies and controversies concerning the crime of infanticide. Nor does it suggest that Schapera ever devoted any substantial book or article to infanticide. Rather he referred in passing to instances of infanticide in various articles and books he wrote on Bechuanaland. He indicated that infanticide was practised in Bechuanaland under certain circumstances, as in any other society. However, it was obvious the exact extent of the practice was unknown because the practice was shrouded in secrecy. It was only when a case had been witnessed by a third party or had been reported to the authorities that the matter reared its head. As such the statistics on infanticide are hard to come by and even where they exist they are at best misleading. The note considers the instances referred to by Schapera and comments on a few available cases. It will emerge that these cases were only those which were prosecuted in the European courts. Infanticide took place broadly under the following circumstances: