SEARCH DATABASE
The Global Gender Equality Constitutional Database is a repository of gender equality related provisions in 194 constitutions from around the world. The Database was updated in partnership with the International Bar Association's Human Rights Institute (IBAHRI) and with support from the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) and the Government of Japan. Experience its wealth and depth of information by starting your search now.
Customary Law
- English(1) If any person is charged with a criminal offence, then, unless the charge is withdrawn, the case shall be afforded a fair hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial court established or recognized by law.
(2) Every person who is charged with a criminal offence-
…
(d) shall be permitted to defend himself or herself before the court in person or, at his or her own expense, by a legal representative of his or her own choice;
(e) shall be afforded facilities to examine in person or by his or her legal representative the witnesses called by the prosecution before the court, and to obtain the attendance and carry out the examination of witnesses to testify on his or her behalf before the court on the same conditions as those applying to witnesses called by the prosecution;
...
(8) No person shall be convicted of a criminal offence unless that offence is defined and the penalty therefor is prescribed in a written law:
...
(12) Nothing contained in or done under the authority of any law shall be held to be inconsistent with or in contravention of-
(b) subsection (2)(d) or (2)(e) of this section to the extent that the law in question prohibits legal representation before a subordinate court in proceedings for an offence under customary law (being proceedings against any person who, under that law, is subject to that law);
...
(e) subsection (8) of this section to the extent that the law in question authorizes a court to convict a person of a criminal offence under any customary law to which, by virtue of that law, such person is subject.
... (Sec. 10)
Customary Law
- English...
2. In exercising judicial authority, the courts shall be guided by the following principles:
…
d. alternative forms of dispute resolution, including traditional dispute resolution mechanisms, shall be promoted, subject to clause (3);
...
3. Traditional dispute resolution mechanisms shall not—
a. contravene the Bill of Rights;
b. be inconsistent with other provisions of this Constitution or other written law; or
c. be repugnant to justice and morality. (Art. 118)
Customary Law
- English
…
WHEREAS the Leaders of Samoa have declared that Samoa should be an Independent State based on Christian principles and Samoan custom and tradition;
… (Preamble) - Samoan
…
ONA ua faaalia e Taitai o Samoa le tatau ona avea Samoa ma Malo Tutoatasi e faavaeina i luga o talitonuga faa-Kerisiano ma tu ma aganuu a Samoa;
… (Uputomua)
Customary Law
- English(1) The institution of Chieftaincy as established by customary law and usage and its non- abolition by legislation is hereby guaranteed and preserved.
(2) Without derogating from the generality of the provisions of subsection (1), no provision of law in so far as it provides for the abolition of the office of Paramount Chief as existing by customary law and usage immediately before the entry into force of this Constitution, shall have effect unless it is included in an Act of Parliament and the provisions of Section 108 shall apply in relation to the Bill for such an Act as they apply in relation to the Bill for an Act of Parliament that alters any of the provisions of this Constitution that are referred to in subsection (3) of that section.
(3) Nothing contained in or done under the authority of any law shall be held to be inconsistent with, or in contravention of, the provisions of subsection (1) to the extent that the law in question makes provision for the determination, in accordance with appropriate customary law and usage, of the validity of the nomination, election, unseating or replacement of any Paramount Chief, or the question of restraining in any way the exercise of any rights, duties, privileges or functions conferred upon, or enjoyed by him, by virtue of his office or the installation or deposition of a person as a Paramount Chief.
(4) A Paramount Chief may be removed from office by the President for any gross misconduct in the performance of the functions of his office if after a public inquiry conducted under the Chairmanship of a Judge of the High Court or a Justice of Appeal or a Justice of the Supreme Court, the Commission of Inquiry makes an adverse finding against the Paramount Chief, and the President is of the opinion that it is in the public interest that the Paramount Chief should be removed.
(5) Subject to the provisions of this Constitution and in furtherance of the provisions of this section, Parliament shall make laws for the qualifications, election, powers, functions, removal and other matters connected with Chieftaincy. (Sec. 72)
Customary Law
- EnglishThe law establishes the rules concerning:
…
- the procedure according to which customs [coutumes] will be declared and brought into harmony with the fundamental principles of the Constitution;
…
- the status of the traditional leadership [chefferie];
… (Art. 99) - FrenchLa loi fixe les règles concernant :
...
- la procédure selon laquelle les coutumes seront constatées et mises en harmonie avec les principes fondamentaux de la Constitution ;
...
- le statut de la chefferie traditionnelle ;
... (Art. 99)
Customary Law
- EnglishNotwithstanding anything in this Constitution,—
(a) no Act of Parliament in respect of
(i) religious or social practices of the Mizos,
(ii) Mizo customary law and procedure.
(iii) administration of civil and criminal justice involving decisions according to Mizo customary law,
(iv) ownership and transfer of land,
shall apply to the State of Mizoram unless the Legislative Assembly of the State of Mizoram by a resolution so decides:
Provided that nothing in this clause shall apply to any Central Act inforce in the Union territory of Mizoram immediately before the commencement of the Constitution (Fifty-third Amendment) Act, 1986;
… (Art. 371G) - Hindiइस संविधान में किसी बात के होते हुए भी,—
(क) निम्नलिखित के संबंध में संसद का कोई अधिनियम
(i) मिज़ो लोगों की धार्मिक या सामाजिक प्रथाएँ,
(ii) मिज़ो रूढ़िजन्य विधि और प्रक्रिया।
(iii) सिविल और दांडिक न्याय प्रशासन, जहां विनिश्चय मिज़ो रूढ़िजन्य विधि के अनुसार होने हैं,
(iv) भूमि का स्वामित्व और अंतरण,
मिजोरम राज्य को तब तक लागू नहीं होगा जब तक मिजोरम की विधान सभा संकल्प द्वारा ऐसा विनिश्चय नहीं करती है:
परंतु इस खंड की कोई बात, संविधान (तिरपनवाँ संशोधन) अधिनियम, 1986 के प्रारंभ से ठीक पहले मिजोरम संघ राज्यक्षेत्र में प्रवृत्त किसी केंद्रीय अधिनियम को लागू नहीं होगी;
… (अनुच्छेद 371छ)
Customary Law
- EnglishEvery citizen shall, in accord with the law, have the right to freely develop literature, culture, arts, customs and traditions they cherish. In the process, they shall avoid any act detrimental to national solidarity. Moreover, any particular action which might adversely affect the interests of one or several other national races shall be taken only after coordinating with and obtaining the settlement of those affected. (Sec. 365)
- Burmeseနိုင်ငံသားတိုင်းသည် ဥပဒေနှင့်အညီ မိမိတို့အမြတ်တနိုးထားရှိသော စာပေ၊ ယဉ်ကျေးမှု၊ အနုပညာနှင့် ဓလေ့ထုံးတမ်းတို့ကို လွတ်လပ်စွာ ပြုစုပျိူးထောင်ဆောင်ရွက်ပိုင်ခွင့်ရှိသည်။ ယင်းသို့ဆောင်ရွက်ရာတွင် တိုင်းရင်းသားစည်းလုံးညီညွတ်ရေးကို ထိပါးမှုမရှိစေရန် ရှောင်ကြဉ်ရမည်။ ထို့ပြင်မိမိတို့၏ ဆောင်ရွက်မှုသည် အခြားတိုင်းရင်းသားလူမျိုး တစ်မျိုးကိုဖြစ်စေ၊ လူမျိုးများကိုဖြစ်စေ ထိခိုက်နစ်နာစေနိုင်လျှင် သက်ဆိုင်သူများအချင်းချင်းညှိနှိုင်း၍ ပြေလည်မှုရရှိပြီးမှသာ ဆောင်ရွက်ခွင့် ရှိသည်။ (ပုဒ်မ-၃၆၅)
Customary Law
- English
The role of the 'Falekaupule', as the island traditional governing authority on each of the islands of Tuvalu, is hereby recognized. The 'Falekaupule' derives its authority from the island's culture, traditions and values and an Act of Parliament. (Sec. 140)
Customary Law
- English(1) The judiciary of Zimbabwe consists of—
…
(f) persons presiding over magistrates courts, customary law courts and other courts established by or under an Act of Parliament.
… (Sec. 163)
Customary Law
- EnglishIn conformity with the Constitution and the laws, the indigenous territories will be governed by councils formed and regulated according to the usages and customs of their communities … (Art. 330)
- SpanishDe conformidad con la Constitución y las leyes, los territorios indígenas estarán gobernados por consejos conformados y reglamentados según los usos y costumbres de sus comunidades … (Art. 330)