The Annual General Meeting of the Association for 1966 was held at Canterbury Hall, University of London, on July 9, 1966. The President, the Hon. Mr. Justice G. B. A. Coker, was in the chair. It was reported that President Senghor and M. G. D'Arboussier had agreed to act as Patrons of the Association.

In this brief note, I have attempted a general survey of legal development in Nigeria between the years 1957 and 1967. The period covered is three years before independence and some seven years after.

Membership.—After a quiet period membership is beginning to go up as a result of the recruiting efforts of various of the members; but the Secretaries-General would like to see a concerted effort at recruitment, especially in African countries, and (a) ask existing members to assist with this, (b) propose a printed circular to lawyers, judges, law teachers and students to bring the Association to their attention, and (c) feel that local sections are a major means of giving new and old members a real feeling of participating.

There are two principal methods whereby land may be used as security for a loan in Ghana. One is the customary law transaction called a mortgage by Sarbah.2 The other is the common law mortgage. It will be convenient to refer to the customary law transaction as a “pledge”, because the creditor obtains possession of the land, and the present article is not concerned with the use of chattels as security. Accordingly, “mortgage” will always mean a common law mortgage.

The Entebbe Secretariat archives contain two interesting sets of reports on native courts compiled by district officers at the request of the Government in 1909 and 1926 respectively. The interest of the 1909 reports lies principally in the high degree of development and formalisation of the courts in the kingdoms of Buganda, Ankole and Toro, which they reveal at this early stage in the administration of the Protectorate. The Agreements of 1900 and 1901 with Buganda, Toro and Ankole had implicitly recognised the existence and jurisdiction of the indigenous courts of these kingdoms. The Buganda Agreement stated that the Kabaka should exercise direct rule over the natives of Buganda administering justice through the Lukiko and his officials. No limitation was placed on the jurisdiction of the Kabaka's courts over Buganda save in so far as appeal lay to the High Court where sentences of more than five years’ imprisonment or a fine of over £100 were imposed, whilst if other sentences were imposed, which seemed to the Commissioner to be disproportionate or “inconsistent with humane principles”, he had the right of remonstrance with the Kabaka who would then have to reconsider the sentence. Moreover, the death sentence could not be carried out without the sanction of the Commissioner. Under the Ankole and Toro Agreements “justice as between natives of the district” was to be administered by the county chiefs with appeal to the Ruler's court and a further appeal in serious cases to the officer administering the district.

II serait vain de sous-estimer la profondeur et la force des courants qui poussent le continent africain vers une balkanisation juridique. De tous temps, le droit traditionnel a donné l’exemple de la plus grande fragmentation.

In order to illustrate the operation of the system, I consider various court cases in more detail.2 I begin with two cases involving Kaguru and two other tribal groups which are minorities in Kaguru-land, the Gogo and Kamba. The Gogo are a minority whose lands border the Kaguru to the west. There are some Gogo residing in every court area of Kaguru-land. In many court cases, Gogo are treated in a manner similar to that of any Kaguru so unfortunate as to dwell in an area where he has no kinsmen to support him in difficulties. These cases indicate a basic aspect of Kaguru affairs, that the rights of individuals are respected by those in authority mainly because such individuals can draw support from others whose cooperation and help in turn may one day be essential to the officials over them. Few such checks protect the lone, poor tribal outsider who has come to Ukaguru because of famine or other troubles in his own land. In the distant past, such aliens were sometimes taken as slaves.Some Gogo reside in small colonies nearby Kagaru, but in many other areas they reside alone or in very small groups. Whereas the Gogo constitute no threateningly large minority in any of the Kaguru areas of Kilosa District, the Kamba form a large minority in several Kaguru headmanships.Furthermore, some lone Kamba or small Kamba groups are found in all of the Kaguru court areas.

Civil wrongs among Somalis are governed by customary law. Somalis have traditionally been pastoral nomads, and their customary law has been closely related to their social organization.

The object of this paper is to throw some light on the attitude of the courts to exemption clauses and to find out whether the difference between the Sudan and England in some of the relevant factors such as economic conditions, literacy and business awareness had led to results different from those achieved in England. The case-law available does not permit a comprehensive study of this interesting area of the law.