Comparing American and British Legal Education Systems: Lessons f ...

Reasons for this delineation are several. First, like the case of legal systems of Commonwealth African States that are based on the common law of England, the legal systems of African countries outside the Commonwealth are based on civil law systems of their colonial masters. Secondly, while the legal systems of Britain and most Commonwealth African States are common law based, the legal systems of other States in Africa and elsewhere outside the Commonwealth are civil law based. We are concerned with university degree programmes at law schools that follow the common law.

1.2 Commonwealth African Jurisdictions that Offer Exceptions to the Common Law

Within the Commonwealth, there are a few African countries, such as Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, Swaziland, South Africa and Zimbabwe,¹ whose legal systems and jurisprudence are influenced primarily by the Roman Dutch Law system.² While the jurisprudence of most Commonwealth African countries follows the English common law, with some country specific adaptations to domestic legislation and judicial decisions, the jurisprudence of Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, Swaziland, South Africa and Zimbabwe offer different variations. In these six countries, the influence of English common law is not as dominant as that of Roman-Dutch law. Although there are traces of English common law, say, in the company laws of these countries, Roman-Dutch law continues to play a significant part in the development of the legal systems of Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, Swaziland, South Africa and Zimbabwe.³ As Professor Iya observes: