It is assumed in this article that there is an urgent need to establish in African states adequate facilities for legal education, and that such education should be of the highest possible standard and adaptable for the special needs of the new African countries. Hitherto much of the law in which an African student was instructed was that which was received from and is applied by the European colonial powers. He was not instructed in customary law or the special legislation of his country. Today the special legislation of a new African state has become increasingly important especially in the fields of co-operatives, trade unionism, agriculture, industry, public administration and social relations. Thus the lawyer of any African state whose only equipment is the received law, which in reality will remain a basis for the understanding of the new legislation, becomes ill-equipped for either private practice or the public service.

In the few “matrilineal” societies of Afikpo and Ohafia, women have full legal capacity to own land (insofar as land can be owned by anyone in these areas);.and to transmit their rights and interests to others either inter vivosor at death.3 The discussion which follows must, therefore, be understood as relating exclusively to the patri-lineal societies which in fact constitute the bulk of Iboland.

In French-speaking Equatorial Africa law has been taught since October, 1959, at a school of law and an administrative wing at Brazzaville. The school of law since December, 1961, has taught the first two years of the law and economics degrees. There are also other teaching centres in the other capitals of Equatorial Africa. The total student enrolment is 200.

“Of all the exploits of equity, the largest and the most important is the invention and development of the trust.”

These were the words of Maitland.2 In the course of his lecture, the learned professor ascribed the invention of the Law of trusts to the work of English lawyers. Before going any further, it should be pointed out that the institution of trusts is one which is not peculiar to English law.

The attainment of independence by Tanganyika has brought about some major changes in the legislative provisions relating to the judicial system of the territory. The most important of these are the provisions relating to the High Court, and the integration of the Local Courts system with the High Court and subordinate courts system. The object of this article is to discuss these new measures, as well as to give a short description of a new project in Tanganyika for the unification of the customary law of the territory.

Most territories in Africa south of the Sahara have produced some printed works in a vernacular language for the guidance of African courts. In the Kingdom of Buganda, however, during the last five years the whole corpus of statutory law and case law administered by the Kabaka's courts has been published in several bilingual series which may be of interest to those engaged in the development of judicial systems elsewhere in Africa.2 Spurred on by the comment of a recent reviewer,3 I propose now to describe these publications and the evolution of a technical legal vocabulary in Luganda, the language of the Ganda.

It is natural that customary law, as compared to written laws, varies like language from tribe to tribe and that in larger or scattered tribes there are different practices within a tribe itself. Customary legal systems have not been recorded in full. For example, the Turkana who are purely pastoral have no formal land law because grazing and rights to water are common to all members of the tribe. The Ndorobo had transitional rights of hunting and honey-gathering in certain ridges, but have refused to extend such exclusive rights to the cattle of the right-holders, while the Bantu generally have highly developed systems of land tenure in their agricultural areas.