The Urgent Need to Revolutionize African Law
Africa lives in the middle of conflict. Some seek to identify the causes. This article attempts to demonstrate that one of the main causes is the legal system that colonization has bequeathed to it. After showing the differences between Western law and African traditional law, the researcher highlights the main characteristics of African traditional law before the colonial period and those of the law bequeathed by the colonizers. On the basis of an in-depth analysis, the author of the article notes that African traditional law played an integrating and conciliatory role, while remaining perfectly realistic. The one bequeathed to the African peoples by colonization can be qualified as the Law of the minority, the Law of exploitation, the Law instituting segregation and discrimination, the disorganizing Law, the Law of mimicry and finally the Law negating the African traditional Law. This raises the question of the real future of African law. This question leads to a quadripartite answer: First, it is imperative to resort to the real Africanization of the legal systems in force in Africa. Second, a refinement of these systems must be undertaken. In third position, the researcher invokes an in-depth reform of the teaching of Law in Africa. Finally, this reformed African Law will be able to play its reconstructive role.
