Since 19592 a bill of rights has always been written into successive Nigerian Constitutions. When the Military took over the government of the country in 1966, it suspended3 or amended a number of the provisions of the governing 1963 Constitution. Quite remarkably Chapter 3 of that Constitution embodying the bill of rights is among the portions that have not been altered or suspended. It is therefore significant that even under the military regime the fundamental rights of the individual are protected by the Constitution. It must however be observed that, before the military intervention, the bill of rights was entrenched in the Constitution since the rights and the procedure for their enforcement could only be altered through a rather complicated process in which both the central and regional legislatures had to participate.4 Since the army take-over no part of the Constitution is entrenched. This is because section 4 of the 1963 Constitution providing for a stiff and complicated amending procedure of some of its provisions has been suspended5 and the Supreme Military Council is now competent to enact any laws on any topic by decree6 and no decree is required to be promulgated in any special form or through any special procedure. A decree is valid once it is signed by the Head of the Federal Military Government.7

In 1960, the Government made the first modern attempt at a comprehensive and formal statement of Ethiopian private law by promulgating Civil and Commercial Codes.2 An earlier source of private law rules, the Fetha Negast (Law of the Kings) has been part of the Ethiopian legal experience since at least 1686, when it was translated from the Roman-influenced thirteenth century Nomocanon of the Egyptian Coptic Church. There is no evidence that this compilation was ever officially promulgated, and it was often subordinated to “equity” (personal feelings of justice influenced by the need to maintain social harmony) and the territorial application of diverse and unrecorded traditional laws.3

The statutory (monogamous) marriage of Oba Oyekan of Lagos to one Miss Akitoye in December 19722, which caused a stir in both social and legal circles, has once more highlighted some of the perennial problems of trying to operate different systems of marriage arising from different cultures and societies within one legal system and jurisdiction. In order to appreciate fully the dilemma which Obas have occasionally had to face because of the multiple system of marriages, and their varying incidents, it is necessary to give a brief outline of these types of marriages. There are three different types of marriage in Nigeria: (i) statutory, (ii) customary and (iii) Islamic marriages. These coincide roughly with (i) Christian culture, (ii) traditional African culture and (iii) Arabic and Islamic culture.

As in other former British territories in Africa, the means of introducing a system of common-law rules into Botswana (then the Bechuanaland Protectorate) was the so-called “reception statute”. This was the device whereby at a particular date the laws of one country (usually England) were “received” wholesale by the colonial territory subject to various conditions contained in the reception statute itself. For Botswana, as for the other former High Commission Territories, Lesotho and Swaziland, it was not the English common law that was introduced but rather the law prevailing in the several parts of what is now South Africa. The General Law Proclamation of 19092 had the effect of introducing the Roman-Dutch law from the Colony of the Cape of Good Hope. Cape statutes promulgated after the date of reception were expressly declared not to be applicable in the territory, whilst amendment of the received law by local statutes was, of course, possible.

“To the trained eye of a civilised community there is undoubtedly a considerable difference in the two designs set side by side and the one would hardly be likely to be mistaken for the other, but while broad principles laid down in English cases should be applied, the trade marks laws in this country should be administered with regard to local conditions…with a view to protecting not only a vast illiterate population little acquainted with pictorial representations but also the pioneers of trade who have earned a reputation among these illiterate folk by the quality of goods associated with some recognised mark such as a particular bird, animal, tree or other object…”2