A New Jurisprudence for Africa

Abstract:     
In this essay, the author argues that, despite the adoption of new rights-friendly constitutions in Africa's emerging democracies, an old "jurisprudence of executive supremacy," fashioned during the era of authoritarianism (colonial and postcolonial) and characterized by a high degree of deference to state (executive) power and a general skepticism about individual rights, remains highly influential within Africa's common-law judiciaries. There is thus a danger that judicial review and constitutional interpretation would retard, instead of facilitate, progress towards constitutional liberalism in Africa's new democracies.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 15

Keywords: judicial review, comparative constitutionalism, Africa democracy, courts

JEL Classification: N40, N47

Accepted Paper Series