Customary law

Kathova Shiputa can’t afford to lose 15 cows. Her husband, Mukwangu Haingura Mikwangu recently committed suicide and now she is the sole parent of their four-year-old child and a second child due in October. But she has been “sentenced” by a Namibian traditional court to hand over those precious cattle as punishment for the “crime” of causing her husband to kill himself.

Read judgment on GhaLII here

FOR commoners among readers, this is a particularly interesting decision. It trawls the arcane administrative processes required before a chief in Ghana is either “enstooled” or on the other hand, removed, “destooled or deskinned”.

Read the judgment here

BY tradition, for a year after the death in 2008 of Ostralia Katuka, Chief Kapijimpanga IV, no new leader was installed over Zambia’s Kaonde people of NorthWestern Province. But behind the scenes a number of family groups engaged Sandangombe, the “kingmaker”, to discuss who they thought should succeed to the throne.