Reform of private law in East Africa

Discuss the adequacy of current East African institutions concerned with promoting reform or change in the private law and examine problems arising from proposals to improve the present situation. By private law is meant generally the rules governing the formal settlement (usually judicial) of disputes between private juridical entities (persons, corporations etc.). Private law includes law of contracts, torts, succession, property, corporation, and so forth. The two sources of private law in East Africa: customary law (included Islamic law); applied Indian codes, English common law as modified by the East African and a few English statutes. Several directions in which the existing rules of private law need revision are indicated. Examples illustrate the importance of private law for development. It is doubtful that the courts can meet the need in East Africa for change in the private law. The difficulties in changing the private law are elaborately discussed. A model is proposed for the introduction of a code structure (variant of Prof. Gyula Eorsi’s model). Ref.