Annotation

Africa is the cradle of humankind, and the cradle of the state and law is located here. In the 4th millennium BC, one of the first states and the first written sources of law appeared in Egypt. However, having passed its peak of development at the dawn of a new era, gradually statehood in African countries loses its civilizational significance, breaks up into clan and tribal associations and fades with the arrival of Europeans. The metropolises in the dependent territories formed a new type of law — colonial, which is a set of norms created by the metropolises for the colonies on the basis of their law: English laws and common law operated in the British possessions, and the laws and codes of the respective metropolises operated in the colonies of continental Europe. During the legal expansion, colonial law completely defined the system of government, the judicial system and the State apparatus and did not take into account the needs of the indigenous population of Africa. A paradigm shift is taking place under the influence of the national liberation movement. Having freed themselves from the political domination of the metropolises, the African countries began to form national law, a new round of development of which occurs today, when the colonial law is replaced by the modern concept of symbiosis of Western law with the norms of religion and custom, the distinctive features of which are the instability of constitutions, the general declarative nature of law, the increasing role of the idea of regional African integration in order to unite in a united front and isolation from the Western world, the rejection of colonial law and the recognition of custom as a full-fledged source of law.