
The Existence of African Jurisprudence: An Audit of Life Experience of Precolonial Anlo Traditional Society
Enoch Kwabena Amoah
Issue: Vol.1 No.6 October 2020 Article 1 pp. 201-212
DOI : https://doi.org/10.38159/ehass.2020101 | Published online 20th October 2020.
© 2020 The Author(s). This is an open access article under the CCBY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
There is a controversy about the nonexistence of African Jurisprudence fueled by a jurisprudential school of thought known as the Skeptic school of thought on African Jurisprudence. Other scholars have contributed to the debate to dispel the stance of this skeptic school. Notable among these scholars is Idowu William who described the import of these attacks by the Skeptic school as consisting in the view that African jurisprudence is at best queasy. This research was carried out using interdisciplinary approach to legal research by combining knowledge in Jurisprudence of law and anthropology of precolonial Anlo society of Gold Coast to put to rest this controversy. Secondary data on plausible theories of the jurisprudence of law were assessed and used as aids to validate what is described as laws in precolonial Anlo society in Gold Coast. The validation of the laws identified was carried through an audit of the life experience of the precolonial Anlo society from secondary sources. The study findings indicate that there exists a set of ideas surrounding the rule of law which is basically developed from experiences peculiar to Africa. These have insignificant traces of western Jurisprudence hence confirming the notion that there is African Jurisprudence. It is recommended that in order not to limit the arguments refuting the claim by the Skeptic school on African jurisprudence in the future to the legal system of precolonial Anlo society, similar audit of other precolonial African societies should be carried out to ascertain whether African jurisprudence exists.
Keywords: African jurisprudence, Natural law school, Positivist school, Historical and anthropological jurisprudence, Therapeutic school of thought.
Appiah, K.A. & Gates, H.L eds..Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience,2nd Ed (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1999): 594.
Ahiable, C. “The Anlos” Dr. Ganu Research Center, Accessed September 12, 2017.
http://www.kganu.net/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/theanlos.htm
Amoah, E. K.,“Justification for Implementing Victim-Offender Mediation in the Criminal Justice System of Ghana.” E-Journal of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, 1 no 5 (2020): 125.https://doi.org/10.38159/ehass.2020091
Archer, R. “Who rules Anlo in the interim: Awodada or Regent?” Modern Ghana. August 31, 2004.
https://www.modernghana.com/news/115125/who-rules-anlo-in-the-interim-awodada-or-regent.html
Babb B.A. & Wexler D.B. Therapeutic Jurisprudence. In: Bruinsma G., Weisburd D. (eds) Encyclopedia of Criminology and Criminal Justice. Springer, New York, NY (2014).https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5690-2_203
Bless, C. and Higson-Smith C., Fundamentals of social research methods: An African perspective (2nd edn, Kenwyn: Juta,1995).
Brewer G. D., “The Challenges of Interdisciplinarity” Policy Science, 32 (1999): 327-328.
Driberg, J. G. “The African Conception of Law” in Journal of Comparative Legislation and International Law, 230, 1934.
Elias, T. O. The Nature of African Customary Law. (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1956).
Ellis, A.B. The Ewe Speaking Peoples of the Slave Coast of West Africa. (Chicago: Benin Press, Ltd., 1965).
Geoffrey, Samuel. Law of Obligations and Legal Remedies. (2nd edn, London: Cavendish Publishing Limited, 2001).
Hart, H.L.A. The Concept of Law. (2nd edn, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994).
Holleman, J. F. Issues in African Law. (The Hague: Mouton and Co., 1974).
Idowu, W. “Against the Skeptical Argument and the Absence Thesis: African Jurisprudence and the Challenge of Positivist Historiography” JPSL, Vol 2 (2006):37. https://doi.org/10.5840/jpsl2006624
______. “Multiculturalism, Legal Pluralism and the Separability Thesis: A Postmodern Critique of ‘An African case for Legal Positivism’’ 2 LSJGDJ (2008):2.
Knight Max, Pure Theory of Law, translated. (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1967).
Ladzekpo, K. “Anlo-Ewe History.” dancedrummer.com. Accessed December 21, 2019.http://www.dancedrummer.com/history.html
Ladzekpo, A., “Religion.” Internet archieve Wayback machine. Accessed December 21, 2019.
https://web.archive.org/web/20061209101922/http://music.calarts.edu/~aladzekp/religion.html
Lafage S. French Language Written and Spoken in Ewe Region (South-Togo) (Paris: SELAF, 1985).
M’Baye, K. “The African Conception of Law” in The Legal Systems of the World and their Common Comparison and Unification, International Association of Legal Science, Vol. II (1975).
Murungi, John. “The Question of African Jurisprudence: Some Hermeneutic Reflections” in A Companion to African Philosophy.(Malden Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishing Limited, 2004).
Nukunya, G.K. Kinship and Marriage among the Anlo Ewe. London School of Economics Monographs on Social Anthropology No.37(New York: Humanities Press Inc., 1969).
______. “The Anlo-Ewe and Full-Time Maritime Fishing Another View.” Maritime Anthropological Studies 2, 2(1989):154-173.
Sale, J. E. M., Lohfeld, L.H. and Brazil, K. “Revisiting Quantitative-Qualitative Debate: Implications for Mixed-Methods Research” Qual Quant, February 53, 36 (1) (2002) 43.
Setordzie, Ivy. “Torkor Atorlia: Anlo Residents Ponder a Return to Live Burial Executions.” Joy News, December 04, 2014.Accessed June 01, 2020. https://m.modernghana.com/news/584652/torkor-atorlia-anlo-residents-ponder-a-return-to-live-burial.html
Smith, M. G. The Sociological Framework of Law, Chapter 2, Kuper and Kuper, 1965.
Venkatachalam, M. Slavery, Memory and Religion in Southeastern Ghana, c.1850–Present, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015). https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781316257852
Wacks, Raymond. An Introduction to Legal Theory (3rd edn, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).
Wedberg, Anders. General Theory of Law and State, translated (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1949).
Enoch Kwabena Amoah Esq., is an Assistant Lecturer at the Faculty of Law, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana and Adjunct Lecturer at the Faculty of Law, Wisconsin International University College, Feyiase, Ghana. He holds Master of Laws degree and is also a Barrister and Solicitor of Law in the Republic of Ghana. He is an Associate of Minkah-Premo & Co. legal firm in Kumasi, Ghana and a Chief of Ekumfi Akwakrom in the Central Region of the Republic of Ghana with stool name NANA AKWA III.
Amoah E. K., “The Existence of African Jurisprudence: An Audit of Life Experience of Precolonial Anlo Traditional Society.” E-Journal of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences 1, no.6 (2020): 201-212. https://doi.org/10.38159/ehass.2020101
© 2020 The Author(s). Published and Maintained by Noyam Publishers. This is an open access article under the CCBY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).