| Abstract: | During the past century, Ghana has operated a pluralistic legal system encompassing English and other Western juristic ideas and procedures on the one hand, and Ghana's own indigenous laws on the other. The author appraises the efficacy of this legal heritage and the challenge it poses in the light of prevailing social and economic conditions. He is concerned that the established practice of the judiciary in Ghana over the past hundred years has been one of blind adherence to the substance of English law and unquestioning acceptance of the principles of English legal reasoning. Judicial creativity and legislative imagination in carrying out radical reforms of the received law to suit Ghana's local conditions have been rare. With respect to customary law, judicial sensitivity has been much more pronounced. Through a process of elaboration and refinement, the courts of Ghana have transformed heterogeneous bodies of preliterate traditional law into a common law of well articulated and sophisticated customary principles catering for the needs of a people caught up in the dynamics of an exchange economy. The process of integration could be taken to its logical conclusion by forging one common law of Ghana encompassing the received law and the indigenous law. Ref. |
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Leiden University catalogue
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