The Sudan law of homicide with comparative references to Scots and English laws

Abstract

The object of this work is two-fold. It is, first, intended to ascertain what the law of homicide in the Sudan is and to examine critically the attitude of the Sudan Courts in interpreting the homicide provisions of the Sudan Penal Code. It is felt that the main value of this is that, apart from Professor G-ledhill's invalu¬ able commentary on the Code, The Penal Codes of Northern Nigeria and the Sudan] no work has been done in this field and the literature on it is extremely scant. This is so despite the fact that it is now more than seventy years since the Code first came into existence. Further, the present writer had the good fortune of having had access to a considerable wealth of unreported criminal cases dating back to the enactment of the Code and -throwing significant light on the courts* interpretation 2 of the S.P.C. The significance of these cases may be realised if it is borne in mind that law reporting in the Sudan was started as late as 1956. In addition to the above, and in order to extraot more information and to ascertain the opinions of leading contemporary Sudanese lawyers on some controversial matters and some sug¬ gested amendments and criticisms of the Sudan law of homicide, a Questionnaire was prepared and distributed among members of the Judiciary, the Ministry of Justice, the Bar and the academic field. Their response on these matters will be referred to in the appropriate places. In the second place, it is intended to oompare and contrast the homicide provisions of the Code with those of other legal systems. The S.P.C. was enacted in 1899 and since then has been subjected only once, in 1925» to a general revision. The Sudan Code was based on the Indian Penal Code which had, in turn, been largely taken from nineteenth century English lav/. Magistrates who applied the S.P.C. in its first fifty-five years were British lawyers and administrators, trained in the common law tradition, and the Sudanese lawyers #10 took over from them are also largely oriented in the same tradition. This has made it necessary to consider the extent to vrfiich the S.P.C. has been interpreted to oonform with the socio-political and economic conditions of the country and the extent to whioh the influence of foreign systems has affected the application of the Code. Again, the comparison and contrast of the Sudan law with those of India and England becomes of great importance in the effort to determine objectively whether the provisions of the S.P.C. are satisfac¬ tory and whether there is room for modification and reform. To widen the scope of the oontrast it has been thought necessary to include the Scottish law of homicide which has no claim to have influenced the law of the Sudan.