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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | The status of African customary criminal law and justice under the received English criminal law in Zambia: a case for the integration of the two systems |
Author: | Mwansa, Kalombo T. |
Year: | 1986 |
Periodical: | The Zimbabwe Law Review |
Volume: | 4 |
Issue: | 1-2 |
Pages: | 23-42 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Zambia |
Subjects: | customary law criminal law conflict of laws |
Abstract: | The coming of the British administration to Northern Rhodesia (independent Zambia) in the beginning of the twentieth century brought with it not only a different system of maintaining social order, but an entirely new criminal justice system. This article examines the African criminal law and justice which prevailed at the time the Europeans came, the European reaction to African criminal law, and the impact which English ideals of criminal justice had on indigenous African concepts and practices. Today, the basis of criminal law in Zambia still originates in English law, while African customary law of crime is outlawed. The article ends with a call for the integration of certain traditional practices into modern criminal law, without sacrificing the basic aspects of justice. In this connection, the discussion centres on provocation and African beliefs in witchcraft and supernatural powers, compensation, and imprisonment. Notes, ref. |