The Constitution of the Somali Republic provides that:“Administrative acts contrary to law…may be invalidated on the initiative of the interested parties in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution.”2

The enactment in Malawi of the Wills and Inheritance (Kamuzu's Mbumba Protection) Ordinance, 1964, represents the most significant attempt at legal reform there in recent years. Its importance lies in the fact that it seeks to impose uniformity in an area of the law which had previously been dominated by diverse systems of customary rules. This piece of legislation is in no sense a codification or a restatement of the customary law; it strikes at the very roots of the existing customary systems. Although it is not the first attempt at reform in this area, it is novel in its ambitious aims and unequivocal implications of policy. Because of this, the degree of success which it enjoys will be closely followed by all those interested in the legal development of modern African states.

In East Africa the traditional division of “native justice” on the one side and “English law” on the other is gradually disappearing. Within the foreseeable future it is possible to visualize a single system of law administered by one judiciary. The fusion of customary law and modified English law has been, or is being, achieved with a remarkable lack of friction. Generally speaking, however, customary law has had to make greater sacrifices in achieving the fusion than its more powerful brother, the common and statutory law of the three states. The latter has made a few minor concessions; for example, when customary criminal law disappeared in Uganda in 1964, the Penal Code was amended to admit adultery as a statutory offence. Adultery had been an offence among all the different tribes in Uganda. But it is usually customary law which has had to change to achieve a single system of law.