McKinnon: Law Needs to Uphold Rights -- and Hopes

Commonwealth Secretary-General Don McKinnon

In other words, Mr McKinnon said what was crucial was promulgating good laws and exercising the rule of law.

“African nations must do everything in their power to educate people about the rule of law, to build up respect for the rule of law, to ensure the leaders uphold the rule of law to a point where everyone sees the rule of law not just as a defence, but also as a source of hope -- the hope of education, health, gender equality, investment and economic opportunity, environmental protection, peace and security,” stated Mr McKinnon.

“At the heart of the rule of law reform should be the development of good law -- law that is relevant to the people it is to serve. That is what the layman, the potential foreign investor and the peasant rural farmer all want to see, it’s what African children deserve.”

Mr McKinnon pointed out that the failures of the legal system in Africa are among the main causes of the continent’s lack of progress. The co-existing systems of customary law and statutory law practised in Africa, to which colonialism had also contributed by imposing legal systems from outside, have allowed “great swathes of justice and development to fall between the cracks.”

Customary law, where justice is meted out by traditional rulers and community leaders, has failed to adapt to the expectations created by modern statehood, education, new technology and global development, he said. It does not address the emerging issues and needs of children, women and the disadvantaged.

“It still bears some of the hallmarks of deep-seated and harmful social values and practices, such as female genital mutilation; enforced female servitude; prolonged and cruel mourning rites for widows; and unfair inheritance practices which fail to recognise women’s rights to inherit a portion of their husband or male relative’s properties,” said Mr McKinnon.

Customary laws such as these have been an obstacle to progress in achieving the Millennium Development Goals which include gender equality, the empowerment of women and improved maternal health. On the other hand, Mr McKinnon said, statutory law had not always been able to address the problems of corruption. In addition, competing priorities in the public sector had resulted in the under-resourcing of court systems, lack of capacity, and lack of ongoing training. In many cases, justice systems are slow and expensive -– and in several African countries, it takes an average of seven to eight years to hear a case.

Mr McKinnon said Africa had made great strides in legal reform over the past decade with the assistance of the African Union’s New Partnership for Africa’s Development and the Commonwealth. The assistance had included strengthening or redrafting national constitutions or legislations; supporting freedom of information; training judges and senior court officials; combating gender-based violence; and supporting the fight against corruption and the implementation of the UN Convention against Corruption.

 

CNIS - Commonwealth News and Information Service Issue 282, 26 April 2006

Secretariat Links:

• Speech by the Rt Hon Don McKinnon, Commonwealth Secretary-General at a conference on ‘Courting Justice: Rule of Law Reform in Africa’
• Law
• Secretary-General