The Republic of Senegal has embarked upon a project to reform its private law. This fact, of itself, might not seem worthy of the attention of the legal profession in the United States, since Senegal is a country of only about 3,250,000 inhabitants, less than the population of the state of Alabama, covering only 76,000 square miles, less than the area of the state of Kansas, and having a total of exports and imports to the dollar zone of less than twelve million dollars in 1962. With twenty per cent of its population in its six largest cities of more than 30,000 inhabitants, it is the most urban, most literate, and most Europeanized of the francophonic countries of sub-Saharan Africa, but this alone would evoke little interest abroad in its attempts at law reform.

With the commencement of the Native Courts (Amendment) Law, 1961, the Government of the Northern Region of Nigeria abolished “opting out”, an experiment with jurisdiction which must surely be unique within the history of modern legal systems and therefore worthy of recording before the facts are obscured and lest any other African state, faced with similar difficulties, is tempted to adopt this expedient as a temporary palliative to meet a similar situation. It is all the more desirable to publish the facts since the strong case for abolition presented by the Northern Regional Government is in danger of being lost by default. On 14th October, 1961, the Daily Service in Nigeria published a bitter attack on the Native Courts (Amendment) Law, 1961, under the title “The light goes out in the North”.

Courts administering African customary law in addition, as a rule, to statute law within specified limits, have been characteristic of territories in Africa with a background of British colonial administration. Such courts operate or operated in both urban and rural areas and have been known at various times in different territories as native courts, local courts or customary courts. A general account of these courts and the nature of the dualism produced by their existence side by side with other courts of the judiciary is provided by R. E. Robinson.