This volume examines the design and impact of courts in African federal systems from a comparative perspective. Recent developments indicate that the previously stymied idea of federalism is now being revived in the constitutional arrangements of several African countries. A number of them jumped on the bandwagon of federalism in the early 1990s because it came to be seen as a means to facilitate development, to counter the concentration of power in a single governmental actor and to manage communal tensions. An important part of the move towards federalism is the establishment of courts that are empowered to umpire intergovernmental disputes. This edited volume brings together contributions that first discuss questions of design by focusing, in particular, on the organization of the judiciary and the appointment of judges in African federal systems. They then examine whether courts have had a rather centralizing or decentralizing impact on the operation of African federal systems. The book will be of interest to researchers and policy-makers in the areas of comparative constitutional law and comparative politics.

Courts are key players in the dynamics of federal countries since their rulings have a direct impact on the ability of governments to centralize and decentralize power. Courts in Federal Countries examines the role high courts play in thirteen countries, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, Nigeria, Spain, and the United States. The volume’s contributors analyse the centralizing or decentralizing forces at play following a court’s ruling on issues such as individual rights, economic affairs, social issues, and other matters. The thirteen substantive chapters have been written to facilitate comparability between the countries. Each chapter outlines a country’s federal system, explains the constitutional and institutional status of the court system, and discusses the high court’s jurisprudence in light of these features. Courts in Federal Countries offers insightful explanations of judicial behaviour in the world’s leading federations.

Looking at the experiences of other federal societies across the globe this volume interrogates the problem of national integration within the context of ethno-religious and cultural pluralism, and presents exciting prospects for the resolution of the National Question. Compelling and indispensable, this work is the most comprehensive and authoritative treatment of the subject in recent years.

Courts in Federal Countries examines the role high courts play in thirteen countries, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, Nigeria, Spain, and the United States.

Using one of the continent’s supposed pathfinders, Cameroon as case-study, this book interrogates judiciary in Africa in three domains. First, as the third branch of government, second, as the acknowledged umpire of federalism, and, finally, as a means of reversing the institutionalization of in-human rights and injustice administration in Africa. While examining the roots and causes of the persisting human rights and justice administration problems in Cameroon particularly, and Africa in general, the book through the tumbu-tumbu Long-Distance Government Theory (LDGT), argues for a rethinking and freeing of strategies currently used from close to a century of colonial and neo-colonial bondage, under the confusing covers of ‘independence’ and of ‘advanced democracy’. The book challenges Africa to consider a mentality change, for a ‘real’ judiciary transformative change. The book will interest legal practitioners, social anthropologists, development studies and political science practitioners, among other such practitioners in the social sciences and humanities.