The Sharia Court of Appeal in Northern Nigeria: The Continuing Crises of Jurisdiction

Oba, Abdulmumini A

doi:10.2307/4144468

Cited by 10 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…66 The outcome of this congruence is that in some regions, Shari'a courts will apply customary law in the light of Islamic law while in other areas Muslims who have contracted an Islamic marriage will have to go to a customary court. 67 The Constitution of Afghanistan is an example of a constitution which does not clearly refer to customary law as a source of law. While there is a reference to the beliefs of Islam in Article 3 of the Constitution, customary law is not directly identified as a source of law.…”

Section: The Stakes Of Including and Excluding Muslim Customary Lawmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Balance between Islamic Law, Customary Law and Human Rights in Islamic Constitutionalism through the Prism of Legal Pluralism

Engeland¹

2014

Cambridge Journal of International and Comparative Law

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This article examines how the inclusion or exclusion of Islamic law and Muslimbased customary law affects de facto or de lege universal human rights. The view adopted is that there is an Islamic form of constitutionalism that should respect Islam, Shari'a law and Muslim customary law. The author therefore suggests a different approach to constitution-making than the transnational constitutional theory and secular theories, looking at the interaction between sources of law and the role for legal pluralism. The originality of the article is to be found in the demonstration that Islamic constitutionalism is not a threat to transnational constitutionalism, or a competitor, but an alternative. The argument is that a constitutional inclusion of Islamic law and Muslim-based customary law is possible if the authoritative sources of Islam are interpreted in the light of the new hermeneutics of Shari'a law. Islamic law and Shari'a-based customary law need to be reformed, taking international human rights law as a yardstick. This approach to interpretation can then promote a more human-rights oriented reading of Islamic legal sources. The aim is to ensure that the Constitution is legitimate in the eyes of all while ensuring that legal pluralism does not undermine State law and violate universal human rights.

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Section: The Stakes Of Including and Excluding Muslim Customary Lawmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Balance between Islamic Law, Customary Law and Human Rights in Islamic Constitutionalism through the Prism of Legal Pluralism

Engeland¹

2014

Cambridge Journal of International and Comparative Law

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“…At the same time, however, the 1999 Constitution, like all the Nigerian constitutions since 1979, contained a somewhat ambiguous clause that empowered a state assembly (or the National Assembly in the case of the Sharia Court of Appeal in the federal capital city of Abuja) to confer additional jurisdiction on the Sharia Court of Appeal. Following the transition from northern-dominated military rule to a southern-led civilian regime in 1999, and amidst widespread pressures in southern Nigeria for ethno-regional selfdetermination in a restructured and decentralised federation, Zamfara and 11 other northern Muslim states invoked the aforementioned clause to legislate the wholesale reintroduction of Sharia into the domains of criminal justice, thereby reversing the 'emasculated jurisdiction' of the Sharia Court of Appeal and producing the current round of the Sharia controversy in Nigeria (Oba, 2004;Peters, 2003 …”

Section: The Sharia Debatesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These include: restoration of sub-unit political autonomy to the level attained under the First Republic; creation of Sharia courts in all 36 states of the federation (rather than just the north) to meet the needs of Muslims in the south; explicit grant of unlimited jurisdiction to the Sharia Court of Appeal; establishment of the FSCA; and a broad constitutional recognition for Sharia as a 'legal and ideological system of its own, and as an alternative to, or coequal with, the imposed western legal and ideological system' (see also Tabiu, 2001;Ahmed, 2003;Haruna, 2003;Ladan, 2004: 95;Oba, 2004;Dambatta et al, 2005). Given these divergent, and apparently irresolvable, Christian-Muslim positions on the Sharia, the issue will most likely remain a permanent feature of constitutional politics in Nigeria.…”

Section: Constitutional Reform Debatesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Like much of the broader agitations for constitutional reform in Nigeria, the reintroduction of Islamic penal law was partly a backlash against the federation's increasingly centrist or integrationist management of divisive identity issues, as underscored by the progressive contraction of the territorial and jurisdictional purviews of the Sharia Court of Appeal since the crafting of the 1959 Northern Nigerian Penal code (Ostien, 2003;Oba, 2004). Yet, given the ethnic, regional and political stakes involved, the expansion of Islamic law provoked considerable turmoil.…”

Section: The Management Of the Sharia Issuementioning

confidence: 99%

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Religion and institutions: Federalism and the management of conflicts over Sharia in Nigeria

Suberu

2009

J of Intl Development

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Conflicts over the status of Sharia Islamic law have dominated constitutional politics and ethno-religious relations in the Nigerian federation for decades. The adoption of stringent Sharia codes by 12 Muslim majority states in northern Nigeria, beginning with Zamfara in 1999, was particularly contentious, provoking broad concerns about the viability and survival of Nigeria's innovatively structured multi-ethnic federal system. But Sharia implementation and extension in Nigeria have followed a largely benign trajectory. The Nigerian federation's judicious combination of centrist and autonomy mechanisms has been remarkably effective in managing religious conflict and cauterising potentially disintegrative centrifugal challenges to national stability. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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The Challenge of Domesticating Children's Rights Treaties in Nigeria and Alternative Legal Avenues for Protecting Children

Ogunniyi

2018

J. Afr. law

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The domestication of child-related treaties is not a straightforward process in Nigeria. Unlike treaties with another thematic focus, the majority of constituent states must give their full consent before any child-related instrument may be domesticated at the federal level and subsequently re-enacted in the domestic states. In many ways, the plural legal orders in the country and the differing perceptions of childhood make consensus difficult to achieve in terms of child rights legislation. In this regard, even though the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child has been domesticated (through a contestable procedure), 11 of Nigeria's 36 constituent states have failed to re-enact the domesticating instrument. This study elaborates on this problem, and then examines some instruments that are not affected by the domestication challenges and may offer useful protection to children with regard to certain sectoral aspects, especially child labour and child trafficking.

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The Sharia Court of Appeal in Northern Nigeria: The Continuing Crises of Jurisdiction

Cited by 10 publications

References 0 publications

The Balance between Islamic Law, Customary Law and Human Rights in Islamic Constitutionalism through the Prism of Legal Pluralism

The Balance between Islamic Law, Customary Law and Human Rights in Islamic Constitutionalism through the Prism of Legal Pluralism

Religion and institutions: Federalism and the management of conflicts over Sharia in Nigeria

The Challenge of Domesticating Children's Rights Treaties in Nigeria and Alternative Legal Avenues for Protecting Children

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