The Abiding Influence of English and French Criminal Law in One African Country: Some Remarks Regarding the Machinery of Criminal Justice in Cameroon

Abstract

The legal systems of the vast majority of the Black African countries can either be reckoned among the common-law family of English origin or the civil-law family in its French version. This is a result of Africa's colonial past; France and England ruled the lion's share of the continent as colonies and gradually transferred their own legal systems to their African possessions. By the time most African territories gained their independence in the sixties, the European legal systems had obtained a firm footing, albeit often still applicable only to a limited extent and in a modified version of the occidental model. After independence, practically all African states maintained the legal system imposed on them by their former colonial masters; since then, they have further developed their laws on the pattern of those legal systems. One effect of this evolving state of affairs, despite all national legal peculiarities, has been a strengthening of the basic adherence of African states to the English or French legal system. On the other hand, it has widened the gap between Anglophone and Francophone countries, at least as far as legal development is concerned. In view of both long-term political goals such as African unity, and also current intra-African relations, such as trade and administrative co-operation between the states, separate legal development in Africa might become a deplorable stumbling block.