The function of constitutional judges and judicial philosophy in Africa: Introduction to the special issue
Posted: 17 December, 2021 Filed under: Trésor Makunya | Tags: Africa, African legal systems, Babacar Kanté, colonialism, constitutional judges, constitutionalism, Gerard Niyungeko, Hajer Gueldich, Judge Albie Sachs, Judge Christine Schurmans, judicial philosophy, South African Constitutional Court, special issue Leave a comment
Author: Trésor Makunya Muhindo
Postdoctoral Fellow and Publications Coordinator, Centre for Human Rights, Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria
This special issue is devoted to the function of constitutional judges and judicial philosophy in Africa through the lens of Justice Albie Sachs’ judicial philosophy. It emerges from presentations made by speakers at the virtual book launch of the French translation of Albie Sachs’ book ‘The strange alchemy of life and law’ (2021) organised on 19 November 2021 by the Pretoria University Law Press.
This issue is divided into three main parts. In the first part, Judge Albie Sachs and Emmanuel De Groof provide the background to the translation of the book. The book aims at bridging the divide between the common law and civil law legal traditions that African legal systems inherited through colonialism. The divide between the two legal traditions is so great that it seems African lawyers and judges based in the common law tradition and those from the civil law tradition operate in a completely different world.
AfricLaw 