African Customary Law in the Former Portuguese Territories, 1954–1974

Throughout all Portuguese colonial history in the African continent, the question of recognizing oral local laws, the so called “customary laws”, and the koranic law in some areas of Guinea and the northern region of Mozambique, could never be separate from the constitutional law applicable to the aboriginal inhabitants who follow it in their daily lives. That is the reason why accepting the principle according to which the everyday-life relations of Africa could be controlled by specific juridicial rules distinct from Portuguese “common law” was always connected with the private and territorial validity of the individual rights and guarantees included in the constitutional texts concerning Africans. As a logical consequence of this link between citizenship and the application of the Portuguese law in force in the metropolis, applying traditional law always depended on the political concepts formed during the present century, as Portuguese sovereignty, until the end of the nineteenth century, was restricted to small littoral centres and the practice of authority in the other regions acquired at the Berlin Conference was deficient or merely nominal. The African juridical rules were always tolerated, as a means of securing colonial public peace or as a necessary condition for the smooth practice of Portuguese sovereignty beyond its European frontiers

Citizenship · Colonialism · Comparative law · Political science · Politics · Portuguese · Sociology · Sovereignty · African history and culture studies · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · Law · Philosophy

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