Go to AfricaBib home

Go to AfricaBib home AfricaBib Go to database home

bibliographic database
Line
Previous page New search

The free AfricaBib App for Android is available here

Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Accommodation between Legal Cultures: Encounters the Local in Ghanaian Land Law
Author:Woodman, Gordon R.ISNI
Year:2001
Periodical:Recht in Afrika = Law in Africa = Droit en Afrique
Issue:1
Pages:57-75
Language:English
Geographic term:Ghana
Subjects:customary law
land law
Law, Human Rights and Violence
Abstract:A combination of received European law and local customary laws regulate land use in Ghana. The present article views this situation as an encounter between different legal cultures rather than as a mixing of legal rules of different origins. The English common law at the time of reception was not only a body of rules. It included the practices and norms observed by the English legal profession with regard to: the common mode of dispute processing by adjudication, the ascertainment of legal norms from case law, legal principles, and modes of reasoning used in the application of legal norms. The indigenous customary law already in existence at the time of reception, and which has persisted outside the scope of state institutions, is a different legal culture. It includes elaborated bodies of social norms of a type which do not permit of a simple application by state courts. Dispute processing involves relatively little adjudication, and an emphasis on mediation and negotiation. Principles regarding freedom of contract, the sanctity of concluded contracts, and the exercise of discretionary power are different from those of the common law. The contact between these two constantly changing cultures has resulted in some acculturation of indigenous legal culture to the common law culture, but little adaptation of the common law to customary legal culture. Notes, ref., sum.
Views
Cover