Politics of Nigeria - Legal System

Legal System

The law of Nigeria is based on the rule of law and the independence of the Judiciary, and also on the British common law because of the long history of British colonial influence. The legal system is therefore similar to the common law systems used in England and Wales and in other Commonwealth countries. The constitutional framework for the legal system is provided by the Constitution of Nigeria.

There are however, four distinct systems of law in Nigeria:

  • English Law, which is derived from its colonial past with Britain;
  • Common law, (case law development since colonial independence);
  • Customary law, which is derived from indigenous traditional norms and practices;
  • Sharia law, used in the northern part of the country.

Like the United States, there is a Judicial branch with a Supreme Court which is regarded as the highest court of the land.

Read more about this topic:  Politics Of Nigeria

Famous quotes containing the words legal system, legal and/or system:

    There are ... two minimum conditions necessary and sufficient for the existence of a legal system. On the one hand those rules of behavior which are valid according to the system’s ultimate criteria of validity must be generally obeyed, and on the other hand, its rules of recognition specifying the criteria of legal validity and its rules of change and adjudication must be effectively accepted as common public standards of official behavior by its officials.
    —H.L.A. (Herbert Lionel Adolphus)

    In ‘70 he married again, and I having, voluntarily, assumed the legal guilt of breaking my marriage contract, do cheerfully accept the legal penalty—a life of celibacy—bringing no charge against him who was my husband, save that he was not much better than the average man.
    Jane Grey Swisshelm (1815–1884)

    Justice in the hands of the powerful is merely a governing system like any other. Why call it justice? Let us rather call it injustice, but of a sly effective order, based entirely on cruel knowledge of the resistance of the weak, their capacity for pain, humiliation and misery. Injustice sustained at the exact degree of necessary tension to turn the cogs of the huge machine-for- the-making-of-rich-men, without bursting the boiler.
    Georges Bernanos (1888–1948)