Introduction

The classical and oriental understanding of Eritrean legal history starts with western colonization. [ [1] ] Yet the truth remains, even though events of the past pertaining to customary laws, traditional dispute settlement mechanisms and the effect of customary law on the Eritrean Society has not been studied well; Eritrean legal history can be traced to a time before western colonization.  For instance, historical facts show that the laws of Adkeme Melgae [ [2] ] and Logo Chewa [ [3] ] date back to the fifteenth century. [ [4] ]

Western influence in Eritrean legal history starts with the Italian colonization. Lidia Favali and Roy Pateman categorized this history into five periods. [ [5] ] These are; the civil law tradition based Italian period, [ [6] ] the British Administration Era that resulted into the incorporation of certain common law concepts to the legal system, [ [7] ] the Federation years, [ [8] ] the Annexation era when Ethiopia colonized Eritrea [ [9] ] and lastly the post-independence era. [ [10] ] What all those phases of legal history had in common is that all of them accepted customary laws as long as it is not in contradiction to the state law. [ [11] ] Moreover, with the exception of codification of major codes during the 1960s all the five periods have seen minor or no changes in the legal system of the country.

The focus of this article is on the current legal system of the Country. The article gives a normative description of the post-independence legal system for legal scholars and researchers. It gives a general overview of the organizational structure of the current Government. In addition, it tries to describe the current judicial system. Lastly, the article concludes by discussing crosscutting issues in law and development in today’s Eritrea. Readmore