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Law, Development, and Legislative Drafting in English-Speaking Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Extract

Legislation in the former British colonial territories exhibited a pair of paradoxes. First, it spoke in legalese, a patois that only judges and lawyers can read easily. Many laws concerning development, however, addressed ordinary citizens. Second, drafters invented and used a specialised style to reduce official and judicial discretion by making legislation more precise, but this frequently endowed officials with discretion as broad as the unbroken sky. In Africa, the uses of legalese seemed to war with the purposes for which it was developed.

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Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1981

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References

page 133 note 1 Zambia, Laws, 1961, Cap. 217, section 21.

page 133 note 2 Ibid. section 26.

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page 135 note 1 Dale, Richard, Legislative Drafting: a new approach (London, 1977), pp. 331–2.Google Scholar

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page 135 note 5 Tanzania, Control of Prices Ordinance, 1951, Cap. 309.

page 135 note 6 Kenya, Sisal Industry Act, 1965, Cap. 341, section 13(3).

page 135 note 7 For example, Kenya, Preventive Detention Act, 1967, Cap. 91.

page 136 note 1 Zambia Youth Service Act, 1964, Cap. 161.

page 137 note 1 Kenya, Agricultural Produce Marketing Act, 1952, Cap. 320.

page 138 note 1 Jamieson, N. J., ‘Towards a Systematic Statute Law’, in Otago Law Review (Dunedin), 3, 1976, pp. 542 and 543 fn.Google Scholar

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page 140 note 3 Thring, op. cit. pp. 2–3. He gives an example, from an amendment proposed by a Q.C. in 1865: ‘Every dog found trespassing on enclosed land unaccompanied by the registered owner of such or other person who shall on being asked give his true name and address, may then and there be destroyed by such occupier or by his orders.

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page 141 note 3 Ibid. p. 236. The game laws endowed prosecutors with great discretion in making their charges.

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page 146 note 1 Cundy v. Lecocq (1884) 13 Q.B.D. 207, ‘ …we have had quoted the maxim that in every criminal offence there must be a guilty mind; but I do not think that maxim has so wide an application as it is sometimes considered to have. In old times, and as applicable to the common law or to earlier statutes, the maxim may have been of general application; but a difference has arisen owing to the greater precision of modern statutes.’

page 146 note 2 Thring, op. cit. pp. 5–6.

page 146 note 3 Ibid. p. 22.

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page 150 note 3 Attorney-General of Kenya v. M. R. Shah, [1959] E.A. pp. 375 and 377.

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page 152 note 1 Seidman, op. cit. ch. 12.

page 152 note 2 For example: Zambia, Penal Code, Cap. 146, SectiOn 305(e).

page 153 note 1 Seidman, op. cit. passim.

page 154 note 1 Green, Reginald H., ‘Law, Laws and Public Enterprise Planning in Africa’, in Ghai, Yash (ed.), Law in the Political Economy of Public Enterprise (Uppsala, 1977), p. 50.Google Scholar

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page 155 note 5 Ibid. p. 23.

page 155 note 6 Tanzania, op. cit, p. 19.

page 155 note 7 Ibid. p. 9.

page 155 note 8 Ibid. pp. 20–1.

page 155 note 9 King, op. cit. p. 7.

page 155 note 10 Ibid. p. 20

page 155 note 11 Tanzania, op. cit. p. 83.

page 155 note 12 Ibid.

page 156 note 1 Zambia, Cabinet Circular No. 72 of 1969.

page 157 note 1 King, op. cit. introduction.

page 157 note 2 Dale, op. cit. p. viii.

page 157 note 3 Gatheru, P. M., ‘The Role and Functions of a Parliamentary Draftsman’, Conference on Law and Development, Nairobi, 06 1974.Google Scholar

page 158 note 1 Regents, University of Blake, California v., in United States Law Week (Washington, D.C.), 46, 1978, p. 4896.Google Scholar

page 159 note 1 Davis, K. C., Discretionary Justice (Baton Rouge, 1969).Google Scholar

page 159 note 2 Quoted in Dale, op. cit. p. 1.

page 159 note 3 Renton Report, p. 1.

page 159 note 4 Dale, op. cit. p. vii.

page 160 note 1 Ibid. p. 332.

page 160 note 2 For example, Massachusetts 1977 Session Laws., ch. 801.

page 160 note 3 Seidman, op. cit. ch. 22.