Rooting Constitutional Identity in African Countries without Pre-colonial Institutional Traditions but with National Values

Abstract

Abstract This chapter examines the experience of the Republic of Cape Verde’s constitutional law in recognising communitarian values as part of its constitutional identity. Beginning with an account of the country’s political and constitutional history before independence, the chapter analyses the context of approval and the main values of the fundamental laws that marked the former and current constitutional order so as to evaluate whether it reflects the cultural identity of the Cape Verdean people; it also emphasises the efforts recently taken by the Constitutional Court of Cape Verde in strengthening that connection and rooting constitutional law in the local creole identity and in certain institutional traditions developed since colonial times. The chapter concludes that the process of constructing Cape Verdean constitutional identity is the result of a patchwork of norms that represent (a) universal values; (b) regional values, both European and African; and (c) values created by the national experience of hybridisation.