Introduction

The story of the way in which the Codes of Criminal Law and Procedure were introduced in British colonial Africa is indeed a fascinating one. As Dr. Morris observes in his article, by 1935 almost the whole of these territories had developed a body of criminal law and procedure which was virtually common throughout the area, and this was to be inherited by the independent governments a quarter of a century later. But this degree of uniform codification was not achieved without difficulty and in some cases strong objection from the local bar and business interests, who feared a loss of liberty under a new written law, and preferred the English common law "with all its forms, solemnities and technicalities", because they felt safe under it. At the Colonial Office there was some opposition to codification based on the model of the Indian Penal Codes, and although in East Africa the Indian Codes had been introduced at an early period, these Codes encountered hostility from the white settlers as well as the officials at the Colonial Office, and eventually were replaced by Codes originally drafted more along the lines of the Nigerian model, but later adapted to meet the criticisms of the law officers of those territories. There were differences in Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia, and Zanzibar had the Indian Codes until 1935 but they all eventually were brought more or less in line. In the Gambia, there was resistance to replacing the English common law by Code, although why anyone should wish to cling to "this dizzying mosaic" baffled the Legal Adviser. Eventually the Codes were pushed through, modelled on the Kenya Code of 1930. Only the Gold Coast then had a differently based Code, which had been adopted in 1892, and was based on the Criminal Code of St. Lucia. The position of Botswana is however different, for, as Mr. Brewer shows, it depends in part on the reception of the Roman-Dutch criminal law, in part on the English common law, and in part on customary law. The problems this poses for Botswana today are clearly described by Mr. Brewer.