Disputes between traditional law and modern law still cause much anguish in Black Africa. A doctoral thesis in social psychology, jointly supervised by the ULg and the University of Yaoundé 1, analyses this phenomenon through the example of inheritance law in Cameroon (1).

The Europeans who colonised Cameroon, notably the French and the English, following on from the Germans, came down heavily in this regard: for them, the traditional norms in force on their arrival had no value and it was necessary to root them out and replace them with the law imported from Europe, a law which is today called modern or positive law. ‘The colonisers had a policy of assimilation,’ points out Joseph Bomda, the author of the thesis. ‘They were convinced that the Other had no civilisation and it was necessary to provide it with one. They tried to destroy existing practices but they realised pretty quickly that they would not achieve their goals by banning them. The colonisers thus made the Cameroon people believe that they would accept their logic whilst looking to progressively crush their ways of thinking. They for instance left the Cameroons the possibility of appealing to traditional jurisdictions, but their decisions would only be legitimate if they respected the prescriptions of the modern code.’

On gaining its independence, in 1960, Cameroon maintained the co-existence of what is known as modern law, because inherited from the colony, and traditional laws. In legal cases in which custom can intercede (marriages, inheritance, etc.), Cameroon citizens can choose to appeal to either a customary or a modern court. If they choose the customary court it will apply traditional laws, but if they run counter to the norms of modern law its decisions can be overruled by a court. And depending on which region of Cameroon the verdict is delivered in, this court will use either the civil code deriving from the French colonisers or the Common Law inherited from the Anglophone colonisers.

The doctoral thesis jointly supervised by the Universities of Liège and Yaoundé 1 examines the psychological impact of the opposition between modern law and traditional law through the example of succession law, an area in which European and African concepts are especially divergent. ‘In Black Africa, succession allows the deceased person to continue to exist in society, and his place does not disappear with his death,’ explains Joseph Bomda. ‘The successor inherits his assets but also his rights, his roles and his missions. It is very different from the European context, where the assets and obligations of the deceased person are inherited, but not necessarily his social status. Moreover, in European law, the succession is divided between precise orders of succession and degrees of varied kinship whilst in Black Africa tradition stipulates that the succession is undivided. Before his death the person will always have taken care to designate to a friend (or the village chief) which of his sons will be his one and only successor.’

This difference of conception has very concrete implications in the life of the three communities in the west of Cameroon studied by Joseph Bomda (2): ‘if the deceased person owned lands on which there were buildings, children, and one or more wives which he supported and kept up, the successor inherits the lands but the wives and children expect him to continue to provide for their needs, maintain the concession, etc. If the deceased was a member of a secret society, his successor will take his place within it.’

(1) « Eveil, vécu et gestion de la dissonance cognitive en contexte post-colonial africain : le cas des affects liés aux conflits des normes successorales au Cameroun ».
(2) Les chefferies de Bandjoun, Baleveng et Foreké-Dschang.