Notes On Legal Literature in East Africa: Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law

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Case Western Reserve Journal of

International Law
Volume 10 | Issue 1
1978
Notes on Legal Literature in East Africa

Robert Martin
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Robert Martin, Notes on Legal Literature in East Africa, 10 Case W. Res. J. Int'l L. 123 (1978)
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1978]
Notes on Legal Literature in East Africa
by Robert Martin*
I. INTRODUCTION
HIS ESSAY is an analysis of an aspect of "the problem of the

superstructure." Such a formulation suggests an attempt to apply a
particular methodology even though it is impossible (and in my view
unnecessary) to fully describe that methodology here. If legal writing is
to play a role in the process of Third World liberation, this is the sub-
ject with which it must be concerned.
A. Hegemony
Marxists have tended to prefer their law crude and simple. Lenin
can probably claim the credit for spawning this tradition, although
Engels' contribution cannot be disregarded.' To Lenin, the state, and
therefore, the law were simply direct instruments of coercion employed
by one class to suppress another. Attempts have certainly been made
to qualify this view. Pashukanis sought to explain law in terms of the
economistic approach to Marxism favoured by earlier Soviet theoreti-
cians, while more recently Poulantzas has essayed a mystical, albeit
state-centered analysis. 2 Mao's theory of the correct handling of con-
tradictions among the people can also be seen as a qualification of the
pure Leninist constructA Still, what might be called mainstream Marx-
ism continues to see law largely in terms of its coercive aspect. 4
While it would be foolish to deny that the "law has force at its
*Associate Professor of Law, University of Western Ontario.

'Engels' view of the state is outlined in The Orgin of the Family, P'rivate Prop-
erty, and the State, in 3 K. MARX & F. ENGELS, SELECTED WORKS 191 (Moscow 1970).
Lenin's views are set out in his well-known essay The State and Revolution, in 2 V.,
LENIN, SELECTED WORKS 144 (Moscow 1947). A lesser known and blunter formulationj
is his brief essay THE STATE (Peking 1965).
'For a lucid and original discussion of these poihts see Fraser, Legal Theory and
Legal Practice, 44/45 ARENA 123 (Greensborough, Austl. 1976).
SMAO TSE-TUNG, On the Correct Handling of ContradictionsAmong the People,
in SELECTED READINGS FROM THE WORKS OF MAO TSE-TUNG 432 (Peking 1971).
4See, e.g., the criticism of Fraser's article, supra note 2, in Boehringer, The Law
and Clau Struggle, 46 ARENA 90 (1977).
CASE W. RES. J. INT'L L. [Vol. 10:123
back in every country however civilised,"' it must be asserted that

Lenin's unvarnished restatement of classical positivism is not adequate.
Indeed, such an approach militates against the development of a
theoretical understanding of law which is both historical and dialecti-
cal in scope. This is not an idle academic question, nor is it one which
is divorced from the concrete exigencies of class struggle. There is a
need to adequately understand bourgeois legal systems and to lay a
theoretical basis for the socialist legal systems which will replace them.
Socialists, and more particularly socialist lawyers, must develop a
theory of law and the state which will permit them to avoid the
hazards of bureaucratic repression (the Soviet Union) and suicidal
6
liberalism (Allende's Chile).
Lenin's theory is inadequate on two counts. First, if denies any
autonomy (relative or otherwise) to law as a social phenomenon
possessing its own internal logic and, second, it refuses to recognize the
hegemonic functions of law. This essay will investigate aspects of the
second question in the context of the legal systems of East Africa..
Marx observed that:
The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e.
the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same
time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means of
material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over
the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking,
the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are sub-
ject to it.'
Nonetheless, Marx did not develop a systematic theory of the role
which ideas play in class domination. This task fell to Gramsci and it
is here that Gramsci's concept of hegemony becomes important .
Ideas do not fall from the sky; they develop in response to specific
historical conditions to serve specific purposes. Thus, to take an idea
IF. LUGARD, POLITICAL MEMORANDA 249 (3d ed. 1970). It is noteworthy that
the architect of the state throughout British colonial Africa should share Lenin's view
of the nature of law.
'This allusion is borrowed from M. Steinberg, Sketch for a Marxist Theory of
the State (unpublished ms., University of Western Ontario, 1977). The discussion
which follows draws heavily on Steinberg's paper.
1K. MARX & F. ENGELS, THE GERMAN IDEOLOGY 64 (New York 1970).
sGramsci's concept of hegemony is outlined in State and Civil Society, in PRISON
NOTEBOOKS 210 (1971). Lucidity is not among the major characteristics of Gramsci's
writing. For an admirable exposition, see C. BOGGS, GRAMscI's MARXISM (1976),
1978] LEGAL LITERATURE
which has important juristic implications, equality emerged as an

abstract goal during the period of intellectual struggle which preceded
the bourgeois democratic revolutions in Europe. 9 The material ambi-
tions of an ascendant class were formulated at the level of ideology as
a demand for equality. With the political triumph of this class, equali-
ty as an idea was reified and became an ideological weapon used to
mystify the true nature of capitalist relations of production.10 In this
sense, equality as an idea functions to legitimate the continuation of
bourgeois dominance. At the same time, however, equality as a com-
ponent of the superstructure of the capitalist mode of production
comes to take on a metahistorical character. Being divorced from its
historical roots it becomes complete abstraction and forms a part of
the cultural and intellectual equipment of every member of society.
Each person within bourgeois society will then perceive equality as a
desirable social goal in itself. Thus, one hears the trite wisdom of
"radicals" that the real (reified) problem with bourgeois legal systems is
that there is "one law for the rich and one law for the poor." The ob-
vious implication is that the law is bad because it does not treat all
people equally. The fact is that bourgeois legal systems do treat all
people equally. Indeed, this is their most important characteristic. It is
through the principle of freedom of contract, whereby people who are
economically unequal are treated as formal, notional equals, that
bourgeois legal systems become most oppressive. Equality is a
hegemonic idea to the extent that it inhibits individuals within
bourgeois society from perceiving this reality.
Gramsci saw that while ideas originate from economic conditions,
they are not merely a reflection of these conditions. He recognized that
ideas affect the way in which people view their own circumstances and,
more important, the way in which they perceive both the possibility
and the means of changing those circumstances.
A class has achieved hegemony to the degree that the ideas which
arose in order to serve its own class interests dominate and permeate
society. These ideas are central to maintaining the rule of that class.
Bourgeois ideas are the ideas of bourgeois society. They are central to
especially ch. 2. For a systematic attempt to apply Gramsci's ideas see R. MILIBAND,
THE STATE IN CAPITALIST SOCIETY (1969).
9See F. ENGELS, ANTI-DOHRING 113-25 (Moscow 1975).
"See the discussion in H. APTHEKER, THE NATURE OF DEMOCRACY, FREEDOM,
AND REVOLUTION 8-13 (1967), where the author investigates exactly what Jefferson
meant when he wrote that all men are created equal.
CASE W. RES. J. INT'L L. [Vol.. 10:123
the socialization of each individual in bourgeois society. They are

hegemonic in that they are internalized throughout society. Each in-
dividual who lives under capitalism is a repository of bourgeois ideas,
regardless of his objective class position. People who are objectively
members of the working class acquire a bourgeois subjectivity. As a
result each member of the ruled class becomes an instrument of his
own oppression. Herein lies the essence of hegemony.
A legal system consists in part of normative rules which serve to
protect the interests of a dominant class. These are its coercive aspect.
Equally, it is made up of values, its hegemonic aspect. In a bourgeois
legal system these latter will include such ideas as equality before the
law, separation of powers, due process, the rule of law, fairness, and
so on. The direct interests of a dominant class will not always deter-
mine the outcome of particular cases. Instances will arise where the
hegemonic aspect is determinative. Thus, clear class enemies of the
bourgeoisie who are charged with crimes are often acquitted in order'
that the law may demonstrate its continued fidelity to its own stated
values." These cases appear to be contradictory or anomalous or,
more crudely, tricks. In order to avoid such a conclusion it is necessary
to grasp the significance of the hegemonic aspect of the law. Class
struggle does not proceed solely out of the barrels of guns; it also takes
place in the minds of human beings.1
If its hegemony is undermined through ideological and cultural
struggle, a ruling class must forfeit its legitimacy and will thenceforth
be able to maintain itself in power solely through force. It is clear that
the hegemony of a ruling class must be assiduously protected, which is
to say that its ideas must be refined, re-expressed, and shaped to fit
new eventualities.' 3 This is the task of those who work in the realm of
ideas.
To the extent that the legal system plays a role in maintaining
"Engels saw this point in his later years. See Letter from Friedrich Engels to
Conrad Schmidt (Aug. 5, 1890), in 3 K. MARX & F. ENGELS, SELECTED WORKS 489
(Moscow 1970). The Miranda and Escobedo decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court
would seem to be illustrations of this principle.
"Judges are seldom outspoken on this point. For an exception see the speech of
Viscount Simonds in Shaw v. Director of Pub. Prosecutions, [1962] A.C. 220, 261-69,
especially at 267.
"Marx refers to those who "make the perfecting of the illusion of the class about
itself their chief source of livelihood." THE GERMAN IDEOLOGY, supra note 7, at 65.
19781 LEGAL LITERATURE
hegemony, it must be shaped by a similar process. It is in this context

that I propose to view legal writing. 1'
Legal writing can take many forms'- statutes, articles, monographs,
judgments-but regardless of form, it partakes of class struggle at the
level of hegemony. One writer seeks to maintain hegemony by causing
the language of the law to conform to changes in fashion. Another
strives toward a similar end by demonstrating how changes in social
behaviour can be accommodated within existing legal principles. Still
another seeks to undermine hegemony by revealing the objective
origins of a legal concept and elucidating its social function in class
terms. It should be added that in none of these categories is it sug-
gested that all intellectual activity is totally conscious. One of the
results of hegemony is that individuals come to accept the ideas of a
ruling class instinctively. Bourgeois intellectual domination is complete
when individuals are incapable of thought other than in the modes of
bourgeois hegemony.
B. Class Struggle in East Africa
Since this paper is an analysis of the role which legal writing plays
in the hegemonic aspect of class struggle in East Africa, some com-
ment about that struggle is necessary. 5 National bourgeoisies, finding
their further development as classes thwarted by the racism of the co-
lonial state, led the struggle for independence. Although this struggle
was directed by national bourgeoisies and resulted in their achieving
control of the machinery of their respective states, it was politically
and ideologically a nationalist struggle. That is, it required the
mobilization of all social strata in support of an ideology which ex-
4There is little or no writing that attempts, explicitly at least, to adopt this ap-
proach. As a partial exception see the interesting comment by Goode, Law Reform
Commission of Canada-PoliticalIdeology of Criminal Process Reform, 54 CANADIAN
B. REV. 653 (1976). Yash Ghai has produced an exhaustive discussion in Notes
Towards a Theory of Law and Ideology: Tanzanian Perspectives, 13 AFR. L. STUD. 31
(1976). Ghai analyzes the extent to which official Tanzanian ideology is reflected, in
an instrumental sense, in its legal system. He does not deal, however, with the
ideological functions of the Tanzanian legal system.
5
The outlines of what follows can be found in C. LEYS, UNDERDEVELOPMENT IN
KENYA: THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF NEo-CoLONIALISM: 1964-1971 (1975) and I.
SHIVJI, CLASS STRUGGLES IN TANZANIA (1976). All the numbers of the Review of
African Political Economy are useful. E. BRETT, COLONIALISM AND UNDERDEVELOP-
MENT IN EAST AFRICA: THE POLITICS OF ECONOMIC CHANGE: 1919-1939 (1973) is ex-
tremely valuable and suggests a methodology through which some of the questions can-
vassed in this paper might be approached.
plained the material dislocation wrought by colonialism in nationalist,

rather than class terms. More specifically at the ideological level, this
required the destruction of colonialist hegemony and its replacement
by nationalist (i.e., national bourgeois) hegemony. This was relatively
easy in national terms, since colonial rule had never achieved, and
could not achieve a significant degree of general legitimacy. It was
more difficult, and more contradictory, in class terms, since national
bourgeoisies had been thoroughly steeped in the ideologies of their co-
lonial rulers. Furthermore, the class position of national bourgeoisies
made the advocacy of a specifically revolutionary ideology impossible.
Two broad choices were open to national bourgeoisies at indepen-
dence. First, they could have sought to transfer power to the mass of
the people. This, as Amilcar Cabral has noted, would have amounted
to class suicide.16 Since this choice has not been adopted anywhere in
East Africa nothing remains to be said about it. Alternatively, national
bourgeoisies could, as they have done, decide to remain in power.
Here two possible courses of action have presented themselves. The
first, which can succinctly be described as neo-colonialism, is the
general policy approach adopted in Kenya. This involves maintaining
the production relations established by colonialism, but ensuring,
through control over the state machinery, that the national bourgeoisie
consumes an ever expanding proportion of the national surplus. The
second approach is to seek disengagement from imperialism through
autarchy and the establishment of state capitalism.' Tanzania has
generally attempted to follow this course. In either case, the national
bourgeoisie must seek sufficient hegemony to legitimate its position and
role. Is
At independence in East Africa, domestic class relations were in a
highly fluid state. This was so because national bourgeoisies were not
economically dominant classes nor had they fully developed ideologies.
Considerable intellectual energy was devoted to the latter task.
'A. CABRAL, REVOLUTION IN GUINEA 57-58 (1969).

"This description is borrowed from M. KIDRON, CAPITALISM AND THEORY 171
(1974).
"SThe reader has undoubtedly noticed that there is no reference in the preceding
passage to Uganda. It would, in my view, be obscene to juxtapose a discussion of the
Amin regime and an analysis of law. This juxtaposition is, therefore, avoided through-
out the paper, although the odd specific reference to Uganda will be made. Those
seeking further information on the "legal system" in present-day Uganda are referred
to INT'L COMM'N OF JURISTS, UGANDA AND HUMAN RIGHTS: REPORTS TO THE U.N.
COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS (Geneva 1977).
Although the overriding objective of such activity was the creation of a

nationalist ideology, the process inevitably saw the expression of many
contradictory tendencies. More recently, some attempts have been
made to challenge national bourgeoisies to move away from pure
ideology and create modes of analysis rooted in concrete conditions
which address themselves to the interests of workers and peasants. The
development of legal writing provides a clear illustration of this pro-
cess.
While statutes and law reports existed from the earliest days of co-
lonialism, there was very little writing about law during the colonial
period. What existed tended to be anecdotal rather than analytical. 1 9
In 1961 legal education began in East Africa at what was then Univer-
sity College, Dar es Salaam.2 0 Although there is far more to legal
literature than the views of academics, the major ideological currents
at work can be seen through a brief discussion of the development of
writing about law in East Africa since independence. This develop-
ment is arbitrarily divided into three periods.
1. The early period
Two features of the early period are immediately apparent. The
people doing the writing are almost all foreigners and the writing they
are doing is more or less aggressively anti-colonialist. The colonial bars
in East Africa were composed of either Asians or Englishmen. Only a
handful of Africans had been admitted to practice and all of these had
been trained at the Inns of Court in London. Very few practitioners
possessed university law degrees. It was, therefore, clear that if
Africans were to be trained to staff the existing, English-based legal
systems, they would have to be trained by persons from outside East
Africa. The early staff members of the Faculty of Law of the Universi-
ty of East Africa came from England, with a certain number from
other parts of the common law world, predominantly North America.
From my own, admittedly unscientific, observations of foreigners who
have gone to work in East Africa, 2 there is a significant number of
"'See, e.g., A. RUSSELL, THE MAGISTRATE (1945). For purely arbitrary reasons, I
have not included a systematic discussion of writings about customary law in this essay.
2OFor a description of the early years, see Twining, Legal Education within East
Africa, in EAST AFRICAN LAW TODAY 115 (1966). For an overview see the various
essays presented in W. HARVEY, INTRODUCTION TO THE LEGAL SYSTEM IN EAST AFRICA
ch. 1 (1975).
211 have been more or less continuously associated with legal education in East
Africa since 1967.
people who did so because they felt estranged from their own societies.
This phenomenon is particularly evident among expatriate university
teachers. If one couples with this an understandable desire to justify
their presence in East Africa, the anti-colonial orientation of their
writing makes more sense. Nonetheless, one should not be misled.
"Anti-colonial" is being used here in a limited sense. The writing
under discussion did not present a systematic critical analysis of co-
lonialism as a particular phase of capitalist development nor did it
question the legitimacy of the colonization of Africa. What it did do
was criticize colonialism for the kind of legal systems it operated.2 2 The
colonial legal systems of East Africa represented a denial in practice of
the basic legal and political values which allegedly underlie all com-
mon law legal systems. These writers attacked the racism, the oppres-
siveness, and the arrogance of the administration of justice in colonial
East Africa. Although they did not realize it, they were attacking co-
lonial legal systems for being colonial legal systems. At the same time
there was evinced an abstract fascination with traditional African legal
matters. An attempt was made to legitimate customary law after its
long colonial hiatus. The idea of synthesizing indigenous and imposed
legal forms and ideas into distinctive national legal systems was eagerly
pursued .2
In terms of its form this legal writing resented a varied picture.
The first problem was that the material necessary to teach law had to
be created. In Nigeria, for example, this resulted in an effort to pro-
duce a range of basic textbooks.24 These tended to be English texts,
with references to Nigerian cases and statutes. In East Africa there was
confusion as to whether English texts or U.S. casebooks were the
preferable form. Much time was expended on a rather unrewarding
debate over the relative merits of English and U.S. teaching tech-
niques. The implicit aim, which was made explicit by the International
'Legal Center in its 1975 report on legal education, was to get as much
local material into circulation as possible.25 Systematic consideration of
methodology and ideology was avoided.
"The apotheosis of this genre is Y. GHAI & J. McAUSLAN, PUBLIC LAW AND
POLITICAL CHANGE IN KENYA (1970).
"3See, e.g., Report of the African Conference on Local Courts and Customary
Law (Faculty of Law, University College, Dar es Salaam 1963).
4A general description is found in L. GOWER, INDEPENDENT AFRICA: THE
CHALLENGE TO THE LEGAL PROFESSION ch. 3 (1967).
"'INT'L LEGAL CENTER, NEW YORK, LEGAL EDUCATION IN A CHANGING WORLD
2. The middle period

In the middle period, roughly from the mid-60's to the early 70's,
three new factors obtruded into the process of legal education. First,
gradually, East Africans, both Asians and Africans, who had studied
law in East Africa began to teach law. Their orientation was strongly
nationalistic. They wished to see a rejection of all things European.
While this view was advanced with great vigor at an abstract,
rhetorical level, its concrete application to legal writing was uncertain.
Actual results seemed to depend more on whether the individual in
question had gone to graduate school in England or the U.S. Still, this
factor intensified the questioning of imposed English legal ideas. Sec-
ond, questions began to be raised as to the aims of legal education.
The realities of the post-independence era made it difficult to continue
to see legal education as an end in itself. The increasingly evident
failure of independence to deliver on its material promises raised ques-
tions about the utility of training replicas of English or U.S. lawyers.
Development began to be seen as the only legitimate aim of political or
public activity and lawyers began to perceive that their activities had
little to do with achieving this aim. Similarly, the then fashionable
North American infatuation with "relevance" impinged on East Africa.
On the whole, these concerns had beneficial effects on legal education.
It was recognized that legal education, and therefore legal writing,
could not continue to deal largely in abstractions. Legal education had
to address itself in some way to the concrete conditions of East Africa.
And further, legal education had to demonstrate a concern with
changing these conditions. Finally, in 1970 the University of
East Africa split up into three independent universities. It should not,
however, be thought that by this time all law teaching was being car-
ried on at Dar es Salaam. While the only Faculty of Law in East
Africa was located there, law teaching was being conducted, although
not to LL.B. students, at Makerere University College and the Univer-
sity College, Nairobi, and at the Kenya School of Law in Nairobi. In
addition, law was being taught at various administrative training cen-
tres throughout East Africa. Still, with the creation of three Faculties
of Law in East Africa in 1970, there was a tendency for the individual
law facilities to become more involved in national, rather than regional
issues.
71-74 (1975). My views on this report can be found in a review in 4 MELANESIAN L.J.
270 (1976).
3. The recent period

In the most recent phase, three additional factors have affected
legal education. First, and most important, the staff of all three law
faculties has become almost entirely localized. This has tended to
remove many extraneous considerations from the agenda. Second, the
amount of political repression has increased markedly. Today in East
Africa one is much less free to write and talk about certain matters
than in the earlier phases. This hardly requires comment in the in-
stance of Uganda, but it is a noteworthy matter in Kenya. Tanzania
still permits a degree of freedom in academic discourse. 26 Such a
climate has had an inevitable effect on legal writing. 27 The third factor
has been the growth in Tanzania, and among the Faculty of Law of
the University of Dar es Salaam, of a strong and indigenous Marxist
tradition. While the boundaries between Marxism and radical na-
tionalism have not always been entirely clear, much creative legal
writing has been produced which vigorously challenges the assumptions
underlying the writing of the earlier two phases. It is interesting that
these tendencies have had little effect on the way in which statutes are
drafted or judgments written in East Africa.
This introduction is inevitably cursory. It has not dealt, for exam-
ple, with the important questions of the ways in which the introduc-
tion of writing and, more important, printing have affected the
development of law in East Africa. 2 I have tried to outline a frame-
work for analyzing the ideological functions of law as evidenced by the
legal literature of East Africa. We turn now to a description and
analysis of that literature.
II. THE MATERIALS
A. Statutes
Extensive statutory materials exist for all three states. One is struck
by the bulk of statutory law available. For present purposes the main
26
But political discourse is not allowed. This is evidenced by the aggressive use of
preventive detention in recent years.
"See the detailed discussion in Martin, Teaching Law in Kenya: A Personal
Footnote, 14 AFR. L. STUD. 63 (1977).
28
Some insights are found in H. INNIS, EMPIRE AND COMMUNICATIONS (rev. ed.
1972), especially at 142-70. A great deal of the methodological confusion that has arisen
concerning writings about customary law derives from a failure to deal with the impact
of writing and printing on the form of customary law. This sort of confusion is evident
points with regard to statutes are their accessibility and their internal
organization.
1. Accessibility
Copies of current statutes are available in institutions where law is
studied formally. Sets of Kenyan, Ugandan, and Tanzanian statutes
are provided in the libraries of the three East African universities,
while in other institutions the usual practice appears to be to provide
only the statutes of the state in question. Access to non-current statutes
is not uniform. This is an important problem in legal research, as the
opportunity to examine non-current material is often essential. The
University of Dar es Salaam has a good collection of non-current East
African statutes. In contrast, the situation at the University of Nairobi
is deplorable. Historical research is almost impossible.
For the general public, access to the statutes is not easy. Copies of
the statutes are normally available in government offices, public
libraries, and advocate's chambers. However, there may be little prac-
tical access because public libraries are found only in major centers.
Further, many bureaucrats tend to treat statutes as if they were con-
fidential documents, and it costs money to see a lawyer. Even if a
member of the public gains access to the statutes, what he reads
therein, assuming he can read, will be unintelligible because statutes
are drafted in the English language and in the highly technical English
style.
It may be little more than a pious hope that statutes can become a
means of communication between government and people. 29 If this is
to occur, it will require a realization that legislative drafting is not a
technical exercise. Drafting clearly involves turning social or economic
policies into a legal form which is politically and administratively
workable.3 0 This places heavy demands on the people responsible for
drafting, demands which should be specifically addressed in legal
education. Since East African statutes remain mystifying documents,
in a recent work, S. POULTER, FAMILY LAW AND LITIGATION IN BASOTHO SOCIETY

(1976). See my review in 16 U. W. ONT. L. REV. - (1977).
29
This hope is expressed in Seidman, The Communication of Law and the Pro-
cess of Development, 1972 WiS. L. -REv. 686. Seidman's ideas are reworked, in a
rather incoherent fashion, in Mutungi, The Communication of the Law Under Condi-
tions of Development: The Kenya Case, 9 E. AFR. L.J. 11 (1973).
"See Rahim, Legislative Implementation of the Arusha Declaration, 4 E. AFR L.
J. 183 (1968).
one can assume that national bourgeoisies are content with the present
situation."'
It is a general characteristic of East African legislation that broad,
often limitless, rulemaking powers are regularly delegated to of-
ficials.3 2 A minimal requirement of legality is that persons affected
should have access to subsidiary legislation. Unfortunately, the systems
for printing and distributing subsidiary legislation are not as effective
as those developed for acts themselves. It is often extremely difficult
for the researcher to feel confident that he has seen complete, current
subsidiary legislation in a particular area. This problem emphasises the
extent to which the development of legal literature in East Africa
depends on the efficiency of the government printers.
2. Internal Organization
East African statutes are not easy to use. A similar system has been
adopted in all three states. Periodically all the statutory law is revised,
consolidated, and published in multivolume sets. This has been done
roughly once a decade. The three revisions presently in force cover
about ten substantial volumes each. Acts are assigned chapter numbers
-and are grouped together within the various volumes according to
broad subject categories. New acts, bills, and subsidiary legislation are
normally published from time to time as supplements to the govern-
ment gazette. New acts are numbered consecutively according to the
year of their passage. Some of the difficulties involved may be ap-
preciated by looking at the example of Tanzania. The last revision of
the laws was carried out in 1965. This revision encompasses roughly
"In 1967 Kenya embarked upon a major exercise in law reform. The purpose of
this exercise was a complete overhaul of the law relating to marriage, divorce, and suc-
cession. Two lengthy reports were produced: Report of the Commission on the Law of
Marriage and Divorce (Nairobi 1968), and Report of the Commission on the Law of
Succession (Nairobi 1968). These reports led to the drafting of two supremely
unintelligible statutes: the Law of Succession Act (Act 14 of 1972) and the Marriage
Bill (1976). Even at the narrow technical level, the statutes which arose from this exer-
cise were not well drafted. See my comments The Age of Majority and the Kenya Law
of Succession Act, 1972, 9 E. AFR. L.J. 77 (1973); and The Kenya Age of Majority
Act, 1974, 10 E. AFR. L.J. 120 (1974). The Commonwealth Secretariat has, for a
number of years, been active in trying to improve all aspects of drafting in the com-
monwealth. See, e.g., Seminar on the Commonwealth Secretariat Programme for the
Training of Legislative Draftsmen (London 1975). On the functioning of legislatures
see Martin, Legislatures and Economic Development in Commonwealth America, 1977
PUB. L. 48.
"2 See R. MARTIN, PERSONAL FREEDOM AND THE LAW IN TANZANIA 110-15 (1974).
540 acts, plus a certain amount of subsidiary legislation. The general

index to these consolidated statutes is good and it is a simple matter to
discover all the acts which are relevant to a particular subject. How-
ever, one cannot always be sure that one has found all the subsidiary
legislation or any U.K. legislation which may be in effect. The real dif-
ficulty arises in keeping up to date with subsequent legislation. Since
1965 the Tanzanian National Assembly has passed, on the average, fif-
ty acts per year. There has also been a considerable amount of sub-
sidiary legislation. Discovering the current legislation on a given topic
can be very time consuming and often a hit-or-miss exercise. There are
neither cumulative nor annual indexes to new statutes and subsidiary
legislation. A certain amount of subsidiary legislation is not published
in the Gazette. Amendments to existing statutes must be written by
hand into the relevant chapter in the 1965 revision. The same thing
applies where a statute has been repealed. This process of continuous
updating should be done by a librarian, but from my experience in
East African libraries it would be unwise to rely on it actually being
done. For the advocate or bureaucrat who does not have the services of
a librarian the difficulties are obviously greater.
The point of all this is that the present system for publishing East
African statutes is far from ideal. Statutes can be presented in such a
way as to maximize their usefulness. The recent edition of the laws of
Swaziland is an example of such a presentation. The question is
whether the respective governments of East Africa would be willing to
devote the necessary resources to put their statutory law into a form
which would achieve his end.
B. Law Reports
Prior to 1957 there were five series of general law reports published
in East Africa. 3" These were the Kenya Law Reports (originally the
East African Protectorate Law Reports), the Uganda Law Reports, the
Tanganyika Law Reports, the Zanzibar Law Reports, and the Court of
Appeal for Eastern Africa Law Reports. Beginning in 1957 all these
reports were merged into the East Africa Law Reports. s4 The earlier
33On law reports see generally the magisterial article Macneil, Research in East
Africa Law, 3 E. AFR. L.J. 47 (1967). See also T. KANE, A STUDY ON LAW REPORTING
IN THE COMMONWEALTH (Commonwealth Secretariat, London 1975). For a brief
discussion of law reporting in East Africa see the review of the African Law Reports
(Malawi) by Slattery in 2 E. AFRICA L. REV. 279 (1969).
"4These were originally called Eastern Africa Law Reports, but the name was
reports were published by the relevant public authorities, while the

East Africa Law Reports were, and continue to be, published by
Butterworths in England. They are edited by an advocate in private prac-
tice in Nairobi. The East African Literature Bureau has reprinted the
Court of Appeal Reports. Copies of the other older series are often dif-
ficult to locate.
The East Africa Law Reports are devoted solely to decisions of the
East African superior courts-the High Courts of Kenya, Uganda,
Tanzania, and Zanzibar, and the Court of Appeal for East Africa.
Decisions of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in appeals
from the Court of Appeal were also reported, but this has ceased since
the jurisdiction of the Judicial Committee to hear such appeals has
been ended. The origin of reported cases in recent years is as follows:
No. of Cases
Year Court Reported
1971 Court of Appeal 40
Kenya H.C. 38
Tanzania H.C. 14
Uganda H.C. 21
113
Kenya H.C. 41
Tanzania H.C. 21
Uganda H.C. 24
149
Kenya H.C. 44
Tanzania H.C. 12
Uganda H.C. 20
126
Cases to be reported are submitted to the editor by the registrar of
the particular court as directed by the appropriate Chief Justice or the
President of the Court of Appeal. Not all cases submitted are
reported. In 1972 forty cases submitted to the editor were not
reported, and in 1973 twenty-eight were not. These cases were not
reported since they were "concerned only with the facts." 35 The editor
changed on 1967, presumably in response to the formation of the East African Com-
munity.
"Information reported to the author by the editor.
generally takes the view that all other judgments submitted should be
reported unless they are wrong in law or irrelevant.
Since 1972 the number of cases submitted for reporting has declined.
In 1972 only 133 cases were submitted. If this decline continues it ob-
viously raises questions about the future of the reports.
The purpose of the East Africa Law Reports is essentially informa-
tional. This purpose is achieved through the presentation of
authoritative judicial pronouncements. This factor to some extent ex-
plains the preponderance of Court of Appeal decisions.
There have recently been criticisms from all the High Courts that
not enough of their decisions are being reported. Particularly strong
criticism has come from the Tanzanian High Court. These criticisms
are somewhat exaggerated. The editor takes the position that he can
only report what he receives and that if a particular High Court does
not send its judgments to him he cannot report them. In 1975, out of
the first eighty cases submitted for reporting only eight were from Tan-
zania. There are part-time editorial personnel located in both Tan-
zania and Uganda who are responsible for local liaison.
Nonetheless, it is true that a certain number of significant superior
court decisions are not submitted and therefore are not reported. Cita-
tion of unreported cases is a fairly common matter in East Africa. It is
difficult to generalize about the kinds of cases that go unreported.
Still, it has happened that politically embarrassing cases have not
found their way into the East Africa Law Reports. The best known of
these is Ooko v. R., 6 the leading case on preventive detention under
Kenya's Preservation of Public Security Act. If a case has not been
reported one must look for the judgment in the appropriate court
registry. Finding cases is, for various reasons, not always easy. Today
one is not permitted, to repeat the same example, even to look at the
judgment in Ooko. 31
The East Africa Law Reports are handsomely produced on high
quality paper and incorporate all the production extras normally found in
English law reports. Four parts plus a single bound volume are produced
each year.
There have been suggestions that the East Africa Law Reports are
"behind schedule" or, at least, rather slow in making decisions
available. These criticisms are probably without substance. Reported
6
" High Court of Kenya at Nairobi, Civil Case No. 1159 of 1966.
SThis is mentioned in Gilmore, Organised Labour and Government Controls in
Kenya, 11 E. AFR. L.J. 1, 33 n.136 (1975).
CASE W. RES. J. INTL L. [Vol. 10:123
judgments are available in East Africa about fifteen months after a

case has actually been'decided. 8
Production of the Reports is handled entirely by Butterworths in
the U.K. This arrangement is difficult to justify. It is possible, in
Nairobi at any rate, to produce printed material as quickly and as
easily as in the U.K.
Financial matters, including marketing and distribution, are also
handled entirely by Butterworths. In 1975, the circulation in Kenya
was 188. Of these, fifty-five copies went to the judiciary, forty-three to
the Commissioner of Police, twenty-five to the Attorney-General's
Chambers, and the rest, presumably, to practitioners. Butterworths
has experienced some difficulty in collecting payment for copies of
reports which go to the governments of Tanzania and Uganda.
The editor is formally responsible only to Butterworths, although
there is an editorial board and an annual report is submitted to the
President of the Court of Appeal.
It seems beyond argument that the East Africa Law Reports per-
form a useful function. Still there appear to be two areas of concern.
First, the East Africa Law Reports may not cater adequately to specific
national, as opposed to East African, interests, and, second, they do
not report the decisions of lower courts.
It has already been suggested that the criticisms coming from Tan-
zania and Uganda to the effect that decisions of their High Courts are
not being adequately reported are largely unfounded. Nonetheless, the
feeling that Tanzanian decisions are not being accorded appropriate
treatment led in 1973 to the creation of the Law Reports of Tanzania.
These reports are produced in a modest cyclostyled format by the
Faculty of Law of the University of Dar es Salaam. They are essentially
a fuller version of the Tanzania High Court Digest which was first
published in 1967. Only decisions of the High Court of Tanzania and
of the Court of Appeal on appeal from the High Court are reported.
"tAn example of this criticism is the following: "[T]o make matters worse, the
production of the East Africa Law Reports is well over a year behind schedule .... "
Hiller, Case Note on Somani's v. Shirinkhanu (No. 2): The Inherent Review Power of
the Court of Appeal, 11 E. AFR. L.J. 123, 137 n.47 (1975). This remark came close to
setting off a lawsuit. A random survey of other reports suggests the following average
time elapses between the day judgment is given in a case and its appearance in a
printed report: All England Reports -5.8 months, with 2 or 3 months for decisions of
the House of Lords; Dominion Law Reports-7.5 months; and Appeal Cases-l
months.
Uganda has also. been publishing some law reports through its Law
Development Centre.
There is no reporting of lower court decisions in East Africa. There
are a number of reasons for this. First, and most important, none of
the three states possesses the resources necessary to collect, edit, and
publish lower court decisions. Second, the utility of reporting such
decisions is questionable. Judgments are usually very short, often con-
taining little more than a few sentences outlining the facts of the case
followed by the court's holding. One seldom finds clearly expressed
legal reasoning. While researchers should not neglect lower court deci-
sions, although it is often very difficult to gain access to them, it does
not follow from this that any useful purpose would be served by their
publication in law reports. Finally, it would be most difficult to
establish consistent criteria to be used in selecting decisions for repor-
ting.
There was one series of specialized law reports published, the East
African Tax Cases. This series began publication in 1955 under the
auspices of the East African High Commission and was continued by
the East African Common Services Organization and the East African
Community. The reports were published to meet the needs of people
who paid income tax and "their professional advisers" and originally
reported all tax cases. Four volumes were published. Since the com-
mon income tax has now disappeared and Tanzania, Kenya, and
Uganda each has its own separate system, these reports have been
discontinued.
Certain indexes and noters-up are available. Butterworths has
published an index to the East Africa Law Reports covering the years
1957 to 1967 and a further index for 1970 to 1972. Works prepared by
Mr. Justice Spry, formerly of the Court of Appeal, and Philip Durand,
formerly of the Kenya Institute of Administration, are also helpful.
Nonetheless, finding East African case law is often a function of know-
ing what you are looking for.
Finally, various national series of digests of superior court decisions
may be mentioned. In 1967 the Law Faculty of the University College,
Dar es Salaam, began publishing the Tanzania High Court Digest.
This consisted of condensed summaries of judgments. The Digest con-
tinued until 1973 when it was incorporated into the Law Reports of
Tanzania. In 1971, the Faculty of Law of the University of Nairobi
began publishing the Kenya High Court Digest. In 1974 the Kenya
Digest expired. The Uganda Law Development Centre publishes a
Monthly Bulletin ofJudgements and Orders of the High Court. Digests

of decisions of the Court of Appeal have been published in the East
African Law Journal. The value of a publication like the Tanzania
High Court Digest was that it provided information on important
judgments quickly and to a wide range of subscribers. The Tanzanian
Digest was very well edited and was accepted for citation in the courts.
C. Government Documents
This category is wide and embraces a range of publications which
are of great significance in East African legal literature. It includes,
for example, policy papers, annual reports, reports of special commis-
sions or inquiries, various parliamentary documents, political speeches
of leaders, and so on. A government printer which can produce
material quickly, cheaply, and in a serviceable form is a basic compo-
nent in the development of legal literature. The extent to which a
government printer will be able to perform these functions is a
political decision, depending on the extent of the resources, human
and monetary, allocated to it. To put it another way, the operation of
a government printer depends primarily on political forces and second-
arily on market forces.
The Kenya Government Printer appears to be a good example of
such an organization, and the publication of the Report of the Public
Service Structure and Remuneration Commission is a useful case in
point. The Commission completed its work in May 1971. Within a
month the printed report of 295 pages, plus 100 pages of appendices,
was available to the public. The printed report, although free from
costly publication extras, was competently presented. The cost of the
Report was (Kenya Shillings) K Sh20.00 per copy. 9 The Government
Printer maintains a shop in Nairobi. The shop is not elegantly ap-
pointed, but the people who work in it are familiar with government
publications and maintain an inventory adequate to satisfy public
demands. Government printing and publishing in Tanzania are not up
to the same standard. Publications are often poorly printed. There is a
considerable delay involved in producing material and significant
publications are often out of stock.
D. Textbooks and Monographs
This category is defined broadly to include all non-official books,
as opposed to articles or pamphlets, which treat directly law in East
"Roughly U.S. $2.50.

Africa. The most striking feature of this category is its unevenness-in

coverage, in quality, and in purpose. These characteristics perhaps can
best be illustrated by some of the books that have been published. 1.
1. Oxford University Press (East Africa)
Maini, Land Law in East Africa (1967)
This is a poor book. It is superficial, inaccurate, and much of it has
been plagiarised. It was never used seriously as a student text,
although this is clearly what it was intended for. One of its effects
was to make a hitherto unsuspecting Oxford University Press skeptical
about publishing law books.
Ghai and McAuslan, Public Law and Political Change in Kenya (1970)
A serious work of scholarship, this book established new directions in
the study of public law. Its relatively limited scope and, for 1970,
high price of K Sh50.0O gave it a rather narrow market. The first
3,000 copies of this book have yet to be sold.
Maliti and Seaton, Tanzania Treaty Practice (1971)
This is a specialized, short monograph which aggressively argues the
Tanzanian approach to the question of state succession to treaty
obligations. It has an obviously limited market.
Martin, Personal Freedom and the Law in Tanzania (1974)
An attempt to present a socialist analysis of public law in Tanzania.
It has been called tendentious and undoubtedly is. The book has sold
well, probably because of a publication subsidy from the Social
Science Research Council of Canada which allowed it to be marketed
at a very low price. It was reprinted in 1976.
Clifford, An Introduction to African Criminology (1974)
Clifford surveys theoretical problems in criminology and attempts to
fix these in an African context. However, the book lacks contex-
tual depth and tends to accept traditional views uncritically. It could
be used as an introductory textbook. It is presently selling slowly.
2. Oxford University Press (U.K.)

McEwen, InternationalBoundaries of East Africa (1971)
Very much a work for the specialist.
Morris and Read, Indirect Rule and the Search for Justice (1972)
While there are many who would be made uneasy by this book's
ideological orientation, it is an-outstanding piece of scholarship. It is
essential reading for anyone who wishes to understand the inner
workings of the colonial state, although a high price and the depth of
its treatment give it a limited student market.
3. Sweet and Maxwell/Stevens (U.K.)

Cole and Denison, Tanganyika: The Development of its Laws and Constitu-
tion (1964)
This book suffers from the limitations imposed by the series of which
it is a part and from the colonialist orientation of its authors. It is
now out of date.
Morris and Read, Uganda: The Development of its Laws and Constitution
(1966)
This useful book was, unfortunately as a result of Obote's coup, out
of date on the day it was published. It does contain useful historical
information.
East African Law Today (1966)
This volume is a random collection of essays dealing with various
aspects of law in East Africa. It is of doubtful value as the essays
were superficial when written and are now dated.
Cotran, Restatement of African Law, Vol. I: Kenya, The Law of Marriage
and Divorce (1968); Vol. II: Kenya, The Law of Succession (1969)
These volumes are part of the Restatement of African Law project of
the School of Oriental and African Studies, London. They attempt to
formulate customary principles in terms of legal rules. There is some
doubt as to whether this is desirable or possible. Still, they are the
only recent works that deal exclusively with customary law. There are
a number of older books on customary law in East Africa which I
have not included in this summary, notably the works of Corry, Cor-
ry and Hartnoll, Gulliver, and Wagner.
The following titles are included in Sweet and Maxwell's "Law in
Africa" series.
Brown, Criminal Procedure in Uganda and Kenya (1965); (2d ed. 1970)
The author has presented what are essentially annotated versions of
the Ugandan and Kenyan Criminal Procedure Codes. The book is
short on analysis. It could be used by students.
Collingwood, Criminal Law of East and Central Africa (1967)
Here we have a counterpart to the preceding volume; both follow
much the same approach and format. Collingwood's book is widely
used by students.
Brown and Allen, An Introduction to the Law of Uganda (1968)
This is a bad book. It is written as if intended for an audience of
semi-literate persons and is superficial to the point of vacuity. It
manages to talk about the "law of Uganda" for 133 pages without
referring to a single decided case and only mentions in passing a
handful of statutes. While there is clearly an important place for
books about law aimed at a general readership, this does not justify
works which fall into the "law for the under-five" category.
Morris, Evidence in East Africa (1968)
An annotation of the East African Evidence Act, it is short on
analysis and exposition and is not, therefore, adequate as a text. The
book is nonetheless widely used by students in East Africa.
Jackson, Guide to the Legal Profession in East Africa (1970)
The author wrote the book in order to assist secondary school
students in making career choices. The book contains useful, if ar-
cane, information. It is very much out of date.
Veitch, East African Cases on the Law of Tort (1972)
Veitch's book points up one of the major difficulties involved in
preparing an exclusively East African casebook. There are many
areas of tort law which have simply not been dealt with by the East
African courts. Since there are no East African cases in these areas
they are not covered in the present book. The book is superficial and
was obviously thrown together in a hurry. It is lacking in exposition
and analysis. To be useful for teaching the book would have to be
supplemented by an English text and an English casebook.
Hodgin, East African Cases on Mercantile Law (1972)
Hodgin's book shares many of the problems of Veitch's book. It is,
however, more carefully prepared and therefore more successful. Like
Veitch's work, this is very much an English casebook.
4. Rothman (U.S.)
Macneil, Contracts: Instruments for Social Co-Operation (1967)
This is an excellent casebook, carefully organized, rich in both ex-
pository legal commentary and nonlegal material. It is illustrative of
the U.S. type of casebook at its best. Its only drawback is that the
text would be difficult to present for a teacher who did not possess
Macneil's point of view and ability. Leaving aside the book's content,
it was cheaply produced. It was offset-printed from typed masters.
Since the type size has been reduced and the right margins are not
justified the book is rather difficult to read. The binding is of poor
quality and does not stand up to a full year of student use. None-
theless, the existence of this book makes it clear that the traditional
law book layout and design are not essential. Major departures from
this traditional form are taking place in Canada and the U.K. and
do, because of their lower cost and shorter production time, deserve
consideration in East Africa .40
"'See the useful discussion in Dowrick, Law Book Publishing, 13 J. Soc'Y PUB.
5. East African Literature Bureau

Jackson, The Law of Kenya: An Introduction (1st ed. 1970; 2d ed. 1975)
A general survey of Kenyan law. The book is superficial and often
pedestrian, but these characteristics may be a function of its subject
matter. It is interesting that this book is the best selling title on the
E.A.L.B. list, the first edition having sold more than 6,000 copies.
This book led to serious questions about the role, if any, of ex-
patriate writers. It has been suggested that the book exemplifies the
extent to which the inappropriate perspectives and the lack of a basic
knowledge on the part of expatriates distort the development of legal
scholarship.4"
James, Land Tenure and Policy in Tanzania (1971)
This book arises out of lecture notes prepared for use at the Universi-
ty of Dar es Salaam. Because of the general approach that prevails in
the Faculty of Law there, the book is concerned with the non-legal
framework within which Tanzanian land law operates.
Slattery, A Handbook on Sentencing (1972)

A survey of the law and practice with regard to sentencing in Tan-
zania. An admirable feature of the book is that it seeks not only to
expound the law, but to discover what East African policies underlie
it.
Oluyede, Administrative Law in East Africa (1973)
This is the worst book about law in East Africa ever published. Most
of it (even the thanks to the author's wife) is plagiarised. What is not
plagiarised is inaccurate. The author appears not to have the
slightest notion about public administration in East Africa.4"
James and Kassam, Law and its Administration in a One-Party State (1973)
The collected speeches of former Chief Justice Georges of Tanzania.
The book is valuable as a source of some of the thoughts of Telford
Georges, a man of singular intellect, character, and integrity. The
volume is marred by its disingenuous introduction by the editors.
TCHRS. L. 27 (1974). In the United Kingdom discussions have been continuing be-
tween law teachers and law publishers over appropriate production standards. See
Society of Public Teachers of Law Working Party on Law Publishing and Legal
Scholarship, Interim Report (mimeo. 1975). For Canada, Butterworths' Canadian
Legal Casebook Series provides an interesting experiment with new production forms.
41See the acrimonious exchange between Okoth-Ogendo, Book Review (T.
Jackson, The Law of Kenya: An Introduction), 6 E. AFR. L.J. 307 (1970) and Jackson,
Book Review: A Reply, 7 E. AFR. L.J. 184 (1971).
42See the scathing review by Nowrojee & Rembe, Quicquid Bene Dictum Est A b
Ulio, Meum Est: A Review Article, 11 E. AFR. L.J. 107 (1975).
James and Fimbo, Customary Land Law of Tanzania (1973)

This casebook deals exhaustively with its subject matter and provides
considerable non-legal material.
Byamugisha, Insurance Law in East Africa (1973)

A short and pedestrian introductory text. There is no discussion of
the social and economic functions of insurance. It does not provide
adequate depth to be used by students without considerable sup-
plementation. The author's writing style ranges from cloudy to im-
penetrable.
Harvey, An Introduction to the Legal System in East Africa (1975)

This is a massive collection of cases, statutes, and readings running to
906 pages and costing K Sh218.00 in paperback. The material involved
was originally brought together for a legal system course at the
University of Nairobi. It is a contemporary U.S.-style casebook and is
designed to be used for teaching purposes. Because of its size, price,
and eclecticism it raises basic questions about the place of U.S.-style
casebooks, in East Africa, particularly when such a casebook is pro-
duced to traditional law book standards. In addition, a casebook is
not a neutral teaching tool. The nature and organization of case-
books create a clear ideological framework for the teaching of a given
subject. That is, a casebook tends to confine the study of law to doc-
trinal questions, significantly precluding historical or social analysis.4 3
Kiapi, Civil Service Laws in East Africa (1975)

A dry little book which deals with the legal rules regulating certain
aspects of the public service in the three East African states. Little at-
tention is devoted to actual practice or the political contexts in which
civil servants operate.
Hodgin, The Law of Contract in East Africa (1976)

A succinct and straightforward introduction to basic contract law.
The author states in his preface that he wishes merely to state the
law. The business of social analysis or law reform is left to others.
43
On casebooks in East Africa see Huber, Legal Education in Anglo-Phonic
Africa: With ParticularAttention to a Casebook and the Criminal Law, 1969 WIs. L.
REV. 1188; and Okoth-Ogendo, Book Review (W. Harvey, An introduction to the
Legal System in East Africa), 14 AFR. L. STUD. 108 (1977). Okoth-Ogendo's review is
interesting not only for his views on casebooks, but for his extremely nationalistic opin-
ion on the role of expatriate writers. A general discussion of the case method of study
is found in Patterson, The Case Method in American Legal Education, 4 J. LEGAL.
EDUC. 1 (1951). Brief comments on the ideological aspect of casebooks are contained
in W. CHAMBLISS & R. SEIDMAN, LAW, ORDER, AND POWER 97-99 (1971).
Katende, Chesterman, Thomas, and Mann, The Law of Business Associations

(1976)
By East African standards this is a gigantic sourcebook, running to
over 1,000 pages. It attempts to deal with the law of all forms of
business association-partnerships, companies, co-operatives, para-
statals, etc. It is a work of careful scholarship and detailed research.
Unfortunately, the high price of this book limits its markets.
6. East African Publishing House
Sawyerr (ed.) East African Law and Social Change (1967)
This is a collection of papers given at a conference held in Dar es
Salaam in 1966. A number of the essays are of value on their own,
although few bear directly on the matters suggested by the book's ti-
tle.
7. Tanzania Publishing House
Thomas, Private Enterprise and the East African Company (1968)
The editor put together a very random collection of essays. It is dif-
ficult to see what purpose this book serves.
Sawyerr and Hiller, The Doctrine of Precedent in the Court of Appeal for
East Africa (1971)
This is a ninety-page monograph which deals exhaustively with the
subject-matter indicated in the title. Further, it is a good example,
from the standpoint of production, of how a book can be published
cheaply, with nothing but essentials added to its basic text, and still
be adequate for its purposes.
8. Tabor Mission Press
Mwakasungula, Jifunze Sheria (1968)
This book, written by a Tanzanian District Magistrate, is of interest
as being the only general work on law published in Swahili. It is a
competent and unambitious introduction to selected topics in
criminal law.
9. Legal Publications Limited
Rogers, Outline of the Commercial Law of East Africa (1968)
A sparse, descriptive account designed for commerce students.
A number of rather obvious conclusions can be drawn from this

survey. First, it is clear that there has never been a policy with regard
to the writing and publishing of East African legal literature. This un-
doubtedly results from the absence of clear class hegemony. Second, it
would not appear that market forces have had a particularly signifi-
19781 LEGAL LITERATURE
cant effect. If market forces had played a major role in determining

what was to be published and what was not, one would, it is sug-
gested, find an emphasis on basic student textbooks and a corre-
sponding absence of specialized monographs. But this has clearly not
been the case. Basic textbooks have not appeared in many areas until
quite recently and, indeed, the coverage is still far from complete." I
am personally unaware of any instance where a legal manuscript deal-
ing with an East African subject has been rejected by an East African
publisher for commercial reasons. Third, there is a preponderance of
non-East African authors. The reasons for this imbalance have already
been suggested. It is presently being corrected and one assumes that
this process will continue.
E. Journals
There was, until recently, a relatively wide range of legal
periodicals being published in East Africa. There were in fact too
many.
1. East African Law Journal
This journal was started in 1965 and was largely edited and written
by the staff of the Faculty of Law at the University College, Dar es
Salaam. The Journal was published under the auspices of Legal Publi-
cations Limited, a company incorporated in Kenya. There was a close
connection between this company and Oceana Publications, a U.S.
company which handled overseas distribution for the East African Law
Journal. In 1967, as a result of disagreements with Oceana and Legal
Publications Limited, the Law Faculty in Dar es Salaam decided to
sever its connections with the Journal and establish its own publication.
Thenceforth the Journal was edited in Nairobi. From 1968 to 1971 it
was edited at the Kenya Institute of Administration, just outside
Nairobi. Since 1972 it has been edited at the Faculty of Law of the
University of Nairobi. Difficulties with Legal Publications Limited and
Oceana continued to beset the Journal. In 1973 the East African
Literature Bureau undertook publication. Overseas distribution, still
handled by Oceana, was not satisfactory. Parts of the 1972 volume
were never distributed, and the uncertain relationship between Oceana
and the East African Literature Bureau gave rise to recriminations on
both sides. Originally the Journal appeared four times per year, but
"This is probably a feature of a colonized culture. The same statement could

also be made, for example, about Canadian legal literature.
this proved impossible to maintain because of delays in printing and

the difficulty of finding sufficient material of acceptable quality. By
the end of 1973 the Journal was also far behind in publication. For
these reasons it was decided in 1974 to publish only two issues per
year. The Journal has been accused of being too Kenyan and narrowly
practice-oriented. In fact, the very low volume of material submitted
made it difficult to have any editorial policy at all. The 1974 and 1975
volumes arguably indicated a certain broadening of coverage. 45 Cir-
culation of the East African Law Journal has been low by international
standards, but reasonable for an East African academic periodical.
There are now less than 300 subscribers, half of whom are outside East
Africa. It has always been a difficult matter to achieve wide interna-
tional circulation for East African journals.
2. Eastern Africa Law Review
The Review was started by the Law Faculty in Dar es Salaam in
1968. As indicated, the Review came into existence as a result of the
opposition which members of that faculty felt towards financial, ad-
ministrative, and ideological aspects of the East African Law Journal.It
has attempted to be a socially, and socialist, oriented periodical. From
1968 to 1971, the Review was published by the Law Faculty in Dar es
Salaam, but beginning with the 1972 volume it was published by the
East African Literature Bureau. The Review appears three times a
year and has a total circulation of about four hundred. It has recently
been rather behind in its production schedule.
3. Makerere Law Journal; Uganda Law Focus
The first of these periodicals is published by the Faculty of Law at
Makerere University and the second by the Uganda Law Development
Centre. Both have appeared sporadically and were of low editorial and
production quality. In 1976 the Makerere Law Journal began to be
published by the East African Literature Bureau.
It is difficult to justify the publication of three university law jour-
nals in East Africa. All had the same publisher and printer. They
followed a traditional law review format and were aimed at essentially
the same market. Their combined circulation per issue was less than
700. All lost a great deal of money. Common sense dictated a rational-
ization of this situation. The main obstacles to such a rationalization
41I must declare my interest and indicate that I edited the Journal from 1973 to
1975.
were the editorial staffs of the East African Law Journal and the
Eastern Africa Law Review. Each feared that amalgamation or in-
tegration would result in one journal being absorbed by the other. The
editors of the Reiew were particularly concerned lest its socialist orien-
tation be diluted. The situation could only have been rectified by the
fiat of the East African Literature Bureau which, as the payer of the
bills, had some right to intercede. With the demise of the Literature
Bureau, which is discussed in detail below, matters have become
uncertain.
4. Dar es Salaam University Law Journal
This is the oldest legal periodical in East Africa, having begun its
life in 1964 as the Journal of the Denning Law Society. It has ap-
peared at irregular intervals since then, having adopted its present
name with volume three. The Journal is organized and edited by
students, but not entirely written by students.
F. Unpublished Material
A prodigious amount of work has been done in the East African
universities, and other institutions of higher education, to produce
materials for teaching law. Largely because of the high turnover of
staff in these centers, much of this work has been wasted. The creation
of a register and depository for unpublished legal material should be
an urgent matter.
III. PRINTING AND PUBLISHING
A. Printing
The main printing center for East Africa, indeed for all of black
Africa, is Nairobi. There are a large number of private printing firms
in Nairobi and many of them possess modern and sophisticated equip-
ment. There is a considerable demand for commercial printing ser-
vices. This often results in substantial delay in non-commercial jobs.
Printing facilities in Dar es Salaam and Kampala are much below the
level of those in Nairobi.
Production costs in Nairobi are about as high as in other parts of
the world. For example, on a 244-page law book published in 1974 by
Oxford University Press the costs were K Shl6,000 for composing and
K ShlO,000 for paper and machining. Paper costs doubled over the
next two years. The recent opening of a paper mill at Webuye in
Kenya has stabilized the costs of paper.
The absence of uniform production standards for East African

legal publications raises an important consideration. Tables, running
heads, textual footnotes, variable typefaces and other production for-
malities increase the costs of legal publication. The elimination of un-
necessary formalities from the printing process could simplify legal
printing without detracting from the quality of the finished product.
Today there is considerable variation among East African publishers
on these matters. Little direction is coming from lawyers, academics,
civil servants, students, and others who have an interest in legal
publishing.
B. Publishing
1. East African Literature Bureau
The Bureau was until recently the largest specialist publisher in
East Africa. It had approximately sixty titles in production at any one
time in addition to publishing more than twenty academic, cultural,
and professional periodicals. N.G. Ngulukulu, the director until 1977,
acted with -considerable foresight and expanded the academic
publishing activities of the Bureau. The Literature Bureau became the
de facto university press for East Africa. This development was not
without difficulty. In addition to having a small editorial staff, the
Bureau operated in a number of areas where it did not possess
qualified editors. Law was one of these areas, although the Bureau did
take the step of sending one of its editors for a one-year, graduate
diploma in law at the University of Dar es Salaam during 1974-75. A
significant increase in the editorial staff was achieved in 1977, but it
was necessary to send these new staff members overseas for training.
Nonetheless, many of the Bureau's editors were attempting to deal
with matters well beyond their training and experience.46 In special-
ised areas the Bureau was often able to call on the services of outside
readers and editors. This was the case with a number of legal titles.
The Literature Bureau was not, of course, a commercial publisher.
It was an agency of the East African Community and had its head-
quarters in Nairobi. It received its funds from the Community and its
director was responsible to the Communications Council of the Com-
munity. Given its relative freedom from financial worries, the Bureau
was able to publish widely without being particularly concerned with
"The reader who may have doubts on this score is advised to look at P.
OLUYEDE, ADMINISTRATIVE LAW IN EAST AFRICA (1973).
sales. The primary goal of its publishing policy appears to have been
one of getting as much material as possible onto the market. The
literary or intellectual content of what was published does not seem to
have been a central concern. Under the circumstances this was a sound
and legitimate policy. The Literature Bureau provided an important
outlet for East African writers. Any attempt to work out policies or
priorities concerning legal publishing in East Africa would have had to
be undertaken in close cooperation with the East African Literature
Bureau.
In 1977, after a life of ten years, the East African Community ef-
fectively collapsed. This is not the place to investigate the reasons for
that collapse in detail. The most important factors involved were un-
doubtedly Field Marshal Amin and the differences in social policy and
level of economic development between Kenya and Tanzania. The
Literature Bureau was one of the casualties. It appears that the
Bureau is now at the mercy of its creditors who have, among other
things, seized the proofs of the most recent edition of the East African
Law Journal. The Bureau's demise is bound to have disastrous effects
on academic publishing in general and legal publishing in particular.
At this stage it is impossible to predict how, and indeed whether, the
gap created by its disappearance will be filled.
2. Oxford University Press
Oxford is the most prestigious publisher in East Africa. It has pro-
duced some titles of high intellectual and production quality. It has
done little legal publishing and will probably do less in the future. My
impression is that it intends to do only a limited amount of special-
ized tertiary publication in the future and that this will be
predominantly in cases where particular titles have received subsidies
from one source or another. Oxford does not have a resident legal
editor.
3. Legal Publications Limited
This organization has been moribund for several years. The idea of
having a specifically "legal" publishing house in East Africa appears,
in the abstract, to be attractive. The experience of Legal Publications
casts some doubt on its practicability. If a legal publishing house is to
be workable at some future date, the experience of Legal Publications
suggests some valuable lessons. First, ongoing subsidies from some
source are essential. Second, a core of full-time editorial and produc-
tion staff must be created and maintained. Third, there must be wide-
spread involvement by persons connected with the legal system in the

process of establishing publication needs and goals, editorial and pro-
duction standards, and marketing criteria. Finally, such an organiza-
tion must be local in character and not simply a branch plant of exter-
nal interests. Legal Publications died largely because it was conceived
as an East African satellite of Oceana Publications. Its management
was left in the hands of a firm of commercial booksellers who would
not be expected to take an interest in the development of East African
legal literature.
4. Tanzania Publishing House
This company was established under the National Development
Corporation to function as a national publisher. Its main work has
been the preparation of school texts. It has also produced a number of
useful monographs on political economy. In the last few years these
have been of a strongly ideological nature. Tanzania Publishing House
has a small, non-specialized, editorial staff.
5. East African Publishing House
In the middle and late 60's it appeared that East African Pub-
lishing House might become the leading academic publisher in East
Africa. Unfortunately, the firm encountered serious financial prob-
lems. It is not likely that it will play a significant role in legal
publishing in the foreseeable future.
6. Longman's (East Africa)
Although Longman's has done a significant amount of legal pub-
lishing elsewhere, it has only tentatively entered this field in East
Africa. It does not, however, have a policy objection to publishing law
books.
It would appear that legal publishing has been a random business
in East Africa. Although the East African Literature Bureau had
become established as the dominant legal publisher, this appears to
have been a function of the kinds of manuscripts submitted to it rather
than the result of a clear policy choice. Legal publishing has not
developed as a specialized field. In my view this explains the uneven
quality of what has been published so far. The fate of Legal Publica-
tions Limited should not be taken to have established forever the im-
possibility of specialized legal publishing in East Africa. It does,
however, make clear that if some form of specialized legal publishing is
going to succeed it will have to be much better planned and co-
ordinated than was Legal Publications. As will be suggested such a

development seems unlikely at present.
IV. FINANCE
A. Inflation
East Africa has not escaped current inflationary trends. This has
affected, and will continue to affect, legal publishing in a number of
ways.
First, paper costs have increased drastically, more than doubling
over the last three years. Until 1976 all the high quality paper used in
book publishing had to be imported and there was no way in which its
price could be. controlled, except through internal subsidies. The
paper mill at Webuye in Kenya began operations in 1976 and since
then all books published in Kenya have been printed on local paper.
The prices for Webuye paper are not, however, significantly below
world prices.
Second, new printing equipment and spare parts must be im-
ported. The prices of such items are subject to the same inflationary
pressures as are the prices of other imported manufactured goods. As
foreign exchange becomes scarcer and its expenditure more stringently
controlled, it is unlikely that the importation of printing equipment
will receive a high priority.
Third, rising prices lead to demands for higher wages. Although
this is a significant factor in East Africa, where national bourgeoisies
aggressively suppress union activity,47 increased labor costs will lead to
either higher book prices, reduced production, or both.
Finally, books are, in any economy, a marginal commodity. As
prices rise generally, and particularly as the price of books rises, one
can assume that sales will decline. This is especially true in East Africa
where there is not a wide reading public. An exception is found in the
school textbook market. The introduction of free primary education in
Kenya (1974) and Tanzania (1978) has created a boom in this market.
B. The General Situation
Inflation serves only to compound the financial problems besetting
legal publishing in East Africa. Prominent among these is the limited
size of the market. Jackson's The Law of Kenya sold 6,000 copies, an
extraordinary figure. Assuming a relatively sound product, an East
4
1See Gilmore, supra note 37, and Mihyo, Labour Unrest and the Quest for
-Workers' Control in Tanzania: Three Case Studies, 7 E. AFRICA L. REV. 1 (1974).
African publisher can usually expect to sell 1,000 to 1,500 copies of a

law book within East Africa. A book will normally be on the market at
least three years before sales of this order are achieved. This suggests
that if prices are not to become absurdly inflated, two complementary
activities are called for. The first is an efficient and aggressive system
of external marketing. Oxford University Press enjoys a great advan-
tage in this regard. Its international organization permits it to promote
and sell books all over the world. Going to the other extreme, the East
African Literature Bureau had no system for overseas distribution.
While it took part in book fairs in various foreign countries, it had no
offices and only one agent outside East Africa. The book fairs yielded
few benefits and the Bureau's agent in the U.K. was a constant source
of trouble. The Bureau could only respond to direct orders for specific
titles. It is obvious that this was not a happy situation.
Assuming that an analysis of the problems of the Literature
Bureau may be of benefit for the future, there would seem to have
been two alternative approaches it might have tried. Either the Bureau
could have made a general arrangement with an international firm to
distribute all its titles overseas, or it could have entered into separate
arrangements with specialized publishers for the distribution of
specialized titles. The experience of Tanzania Publishing House with
Macmillan's helped to make the Literature Bureau wary of entering in-
to relationships with foreign publishers. It was the view of T.P.H. that
it received very little positive benefit from its connection with Mac-
millan's, which appeared to see the venture as a device for dumping
unsellable school texts in the Tanzanian market.48 The Literature
Bureau very correctly did not regard overseas distribution as an end in
itself.
There is a further problem concerning overseas distribution. Until
very recently, East African publishers could rely on selling three to
four hundred copies of almost any academic title to university libraries
in the United States and two to three hundred in Europe and the U.K.
These guaranteed markets operated as a kind of built-in subsidy. To-
day, however, overseas universities are not in the same financial posi-
tion. Their libraries have adopted more selective acquisitions policies.
Sales in this market of the earlier volume can therefore no longer be
seen as automatic.
Second, there is, as has been noted, a need for subsidizing legal
publishing in a systematic fashion. In this regard the East African
4SHutchison, Neo-Colonial Tactics, 23 AFRICA 74 (1973).
Literature Bureau was in an advantageous position. By the nature of

its constitution it enjoyed continuous subsidization. In addition, since it
was a public body, it could potentially receive a certain amount of
assistance from external sources. In 1973 the Canadian Government
provided the Bureau with a small amount of paper and the Norwegian
Government made the services of an editor with experience in periodi-
cal publishing available for one year. Commercial publishers are not so
fortunate. Where they do receive publication subsidies, such subsidies
will normally be arranged by the author of the work in question.
Nothing along the lines of a social science research council exists in
East Africa, so that subsidies will ordinarily have to be sought from ex-
ternal sources. As a final point, government printers, like the East
African Literature Bureau, are automatically subsidized. This suggests
that they might be able to undertake a broader role in legal publishing
beyond the production of statutes and other official documents. It is
interesting in this connection that the Kenya Government Printer has
published for general consumption various materials prepared for
teaching purposes by the law department of the Kenya Institute of Ad-
ministration.
V. PLANNING AND COORDINATION
It should be clear from the foregoing that a systematic approach to

the publication of legal literature in East Africa does not exist. Such
an approach appears, in the abstract, to be desirable for the following
reasons.
First, an attempt could be made to determine with some degree of'
precision the needs which an East African legal literature should be
filling. This would not be an easy process since, for ideological reasons,
many of the constituencies involved hold fundamentally different
perceptions of these needs. Nonetheless, certain questions are suscep-
tible of resolution. For example, it could be determined whether legal
materials should be published in Swahili, and if so, what sorts of
materials and in what form. Second, if it is possible to clarify the
needs involved, it should then also be possible to articulate broad goals
and to establish priorities with regard both to the content of what is to
be published and the form in which it is to be produced. In this
regard it would be useful to assign publication and content priorities
with respect to four, more-or-less distinct groups of law book consumers
-practitioners, law students, non-law students, and the general
public. Third, any degree of planning and coordintion is bound to
limit the effect of financial pressures. The possibility of publishing.
questionable material could be minimized, thereby avoiding a great

deal of waste. Standardization of format and layout would permit sav-
ings of production costs. A coordinating body could receive and
distribute subsidies and grants and develop a system for external
distribution. Finally, an established system of coordination should con-
tribute to the formulation of professional, social, intellectual, and
literary standards for East African legal publishing.
The creation of a rationalized system for publishing legal literature
in East Africa has certain attractions. Given existing conditions, how-
ever, the creation of such a system is unlikely and, even if it were
possible, it is not certain that it would lead to desirable results. There
is presently a respectable body of East African legal literature. Much
of it is bad and much of it is of questionable relevance to social reality
in East Africa. The process of producing it has often been wasteful
and costly. But it is there. A structure along the lines discussed could
certainly be created. It would be quite another matter to find the will
necessary to make it work in contemporary East Africa. Antipathy be-
tween academics and bureaucrats, ideologically-based mistrust,
careerism, corruption-all these would affect any attempt to establish
a system of the type discussed. This can be illustrated by looking at
one aborted initiative. Problems of planning and coordinating legal
publishing were discussed at the meeting of the East African Law
Teachers Association held in Dar es Salaam in December 1973. The
possibility of establishing a committee to advise the East African
Literature Bureau was canvassed. The Bureau itself was eager to see
such a committee established and sent one of its editors to attend the
meeting. It was agreed on all sides that such an advisory committee
would be a good thing and that it should be established by the East
African Law Teachers Association. Nothing was ever done. Indeed,
this Law Teachers Association itself is now moribund.
VI. LAW LIBRARIES AND BOOKSELLERS
To emphasize the point made above concerning access, it is self-

evident that legal literature only has a value if it is available to be read
and used. Significant collections of legal materials are found in East
Africa in university libraries, High Court buildings, Attorney-Generals'
chambers, and government administrative training institutes. For the
legal practitioner the position is good. He will have little or no difficul-
ty gaining access to any of these collections, although in fact few prac-
titioners in East Africa read very widely outside the law reports and the
statute book. The student will have to rely on the collection available
in his own institution. He will find it difficult to gain admittance to
the High Court library or the Attorney-General's library. A member of
the general public will find it almost impossible to use any of these col-
lections. Public and national libraries do make certain legal materials
available, but their collections tend to be rather haphazard. It should
be stressed that almost all the facilities described are to be found only
in the capital city. Access to legal literature on the part of anyone liv-
ing in the rural areas is limited.
The value of a relatively large collection of legal materials is, to a
great extent, a function of the skill and energy of the librarians involved.
The creation of a cadre of trained and service-oriented law librarians
would be a major contribution to the development of national legal
literature in East Africa. It would be idle to imagine that such a
course of action is likely at present to receive a very high priority in the
allocation of public resources.
Apart from one or two shops in Nairobi, the situation with regard
to East African commercial booksellers is not encouraging. The great
bulk of what is offered for sale in these shops comprises school texts,
religious tracts, or tourist pap. One does often find legal literature in
bookshops, but it is clear that ordering is random. There is no special-
ized legal bookseller in East Africa. If one of the aims of developing a
national legal literature is to increase popular consciousness of the law,
then serious efforts must be made to deliver this literature to the
public. It would seem that a program to do this is also unlikely to
merit a very high priority.
VII. CONCLUSION
This essay has focused on the ideological, as opposed to profes-
sional or doctrinal, aspects of legal literature. It has sought to indicate
that legal writing in East Africa today represents a process of groping
towards an appropriate mode of expression, in terms of its form and
content. 49 It has also suggested that this is not a historical process,
that the development of legal literature is only intelligible if seen in the
context of the concrete historical conditions of East Africa. This re-
quires an analysis of class struggle in East Africa which is directed
specifically towards the question of hegemony and which concentrates
49
A useful collection of writings describing a similar process during the first cen-
tury of the United States is THE LEGAL MIND IN AMERICA: FROM INDEPENDENCE TO
THE CIVIL WAR (P. Miller ed. 1962).
on the hegemonic functions of legal literature. Such an analysis arises

from a perception that legal writing, and, for that matter, any
category of writing, cannot be socially neutral. Indeed, legal literature
has traditionally played a major ideological role by seeking to present
itself as neutral.5 0 An exclusive concern with doctrinal questions serves
as a means of removing other broader, and more important, issues
from the agenda. The case method of legal education, for example,
operates to define political, social, and historical questions as irrelevant
and, therefore, to prevent such matters even being considered. 5'
One must not exaggerate the significance of legal writing. It is
both a minor feature of the legal system itself and of the wider in-
tellectual, ideological system. 5 2 Legal writing is, and has been, directed
towards a narrow and specialized audience. Nonetheless, the study of
legal writing can be a useful vehicle for expanding understanding of
the historical origins and social functions of legal systems. 5
"See the forceful expression in Shivji, From the Analysis of Forms to the Exposi-
tion of Substance: The Tasks of a Lawyer-Intellectual, 5 E. AFRICA L. REV. 1 (1972).
"See sources cited in note 43 supra.
5"Although Blackstone's Commentaries, as an extreme example, did shape the
social and political thinking of several generations of Englishmen and Americans of a
particular class.
"The author would like to thank David Broad, Roger Houghton, N.G. Ngulu-
kulu, Michael Steinberg, and William Twining for their assistance in the preparation
of this paper.

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Notes on Legal Literature in East Africa

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Notes on Legal Literature in East Africa

HIS ESSAY is an analysis of an aspect of "the problem of the

*Associate Professor of Law, University of Western Ontario.

back in every country however civilised,"' it must be asserted that

which has important juristic implications, equality emerged as an

the socialization of each individual in bourgeois society. They are

hegemony, it must be shaped by a similar process. It is in this context

plained the material dislocation wrought by colonialism in nationalist,

'A. CABRAL, REVOLUTION IN GUINEA 57-58 (1969).

Although the overriding objective of such activity was the creation of a

2. The middle period

3. The recent period

II. THE MATERIALS

in a recent work, S. POULTER, FAMILY LAW AND LITIGATION IN BASOTHO SOCIETY

540 acts, plus a certain amount of subsidiary legislation. The general

reports were published by the relevant public authorities, while the

judgments are available in East Africa about fifteen months after a

Monthly Bulletin ofJudgements and Orders of the High Court. Digests

"Roughly U.S. $2.50.

Africa. The most striking feature of this category is its unevenness-in

2. Oxford University Press (U.K.)

3. Sweet and Maxwell/Stevens (U.K.)

5. East African Literature Bureau

Slattery, A Handbook on Sentencing (1972)

James and Fimbo, Customary Land Law of Tanzania (1973)

Byamugisha, Insurance Law in East Africa (1973)

Harvey, An Introduction to the Legal System in East Africa (1975)

Kiapi, Civil Service Laws in East Africa (1975)

Hodgin, The Law of Contract in East Africa (1976)

Katende, Chesterman, Thomas, and Mann, The Law of Business Associations

A number of rather obvious conclusions can be drawn from this

cant effect. If market forces had played a major role in determining

"This is probably a feature of a colonized culture. The same statement could

this proved impossible to maintain because of delays in printing and

III. PRINTING AND PUBLISHING

The absence of uniform production standards for East African

spread involvement by persons connected with the legal system in the

ordinated than was Legal Publications. As will be suggested such a

African publisher can usually expect to sell 1,000 to 1,500 copies of a

Literature Bureau was in an advantageous position. By the nature of

It should be clear from the foregoing that a systematic approach to

questionable material could be minimized, thereby avoiding a great

VI. LAW LIBRARIES AND BOOKSELLERS

To emphasize the point made above concerning access, it is self-

on the hegemonic functions of legal literature. Such an analysis arises

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