Commentary on the Report of the Working Party on African Land Tenure in Kenya, 1937‐58
| Date | 01 October 1959 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/j.1099-162X.1959.tb00146.x |
| Published date | 01 October 1959 |
Commentary
on
the
Report
of
the
Working
Party
on
African Land
Tenure
in
Kenya,
1957-5
8
THE previous article has treated
of
developments
up
to
the
appointment
in
1957
of
aWorking
Party
or Committee! to examine
and
to
make
practical
proposals concerning African land tenure.
The
Committee consisted of the land tenure officer
of
Kenya, a legal
draftsman
and
the African
land
titles officer of the territory, together with
Mr.
S. R. Simpson, the
land
tenure specialist of the Colonial Office, whose
report
on the introduction of the registration
of
title to
land
in Lagos was
recently reviewed in this
Journal
2
and
whose knowledge of the subject
and
its
legislation in territories scattered widely over the globe was no
doubt
largely
responsible for
the
great
width
of
experience
and
legislation
of
other
territories
which is
apparent
in the sources on which this Committee's
draft
legislation
has drawn. These sources
are
as disparate in time
and
space as
the
recent
Tanganyika
Land
Registration
Ordinance
of 1953
and
the
original 1858
South Australian
statute
of
Robert
Torrens.
The
Committee's task was to examine the extent of the African
demand
for
individualization of title
and
the extent to which it
had
in fact, grown
up;
to
examine
the
principles
and
practice
of
the
Land
Tenure
Rules
and
to
amend
these as necessary to provide for the adjudication or 'settlement'
of
claims
required for
the
formal legal registration of title; to determine the type
of
title
to be granted,
the
provision to be
made
for titles which
had
not
developed
so far towards full individual ownership
and
the
other
subordinate interests
in
land;
to determine
what
status such registered
land
should have, particularly
in regard to its existing protected status as. 'Native
Land'
under
the 1938
legislation;
and
finally to
draft
the substantive law which should thereafter
govern these registered titles
and
the remaining Native Land,
In
this large
agenda
the
Committee naturally
had
to meet practically all
the
problems characteristic
of
a
decay~ng
tribal tenu.re
and
the
dan~er~
of
the
adop-
tion
of
one based on modern Enghsh
land
law (10some people s
VIew
almost as
effete).
The
Report
has a singular value in its appraisal of these problems
and
its recommendations on them. These
are
recorded with remarkable clarity
and
conciseness in the short space
of
sixty pages.
This
article seeks only to
explain the principles underlying this bold reform
and
to mention the methods
by which it has
dealt
with some of the
major
problems.
It
is therefore no
substitute for the
Report
which should certainly be
read
itself in view
of
its
importance
to a wide
range
of
territories where
the
development towards a
modern
form
of
tenure is taking place. Its brevity
and
conciseness should
remove
any
fear
that
it is
just
'another
of
those reports'; it reads in fact
much
more
like sixty pages of action.
The
nature
and
significance
of
the
proposals as a whole should first be noticed.
They
embrace
much
more
than
the mere ascertainment
and
recording
of
individualized rights envisaged by
Girouard
and
more recently contemplated
in
other
territories, or the simple foundation
of
a system
of
registration
of
title
which
Mr.
Chamberlain
(with a good deal
of
wisdom
and
foresight) saw in
the
1
The
Working Party is referred to as the Committee throughout this article.
2J.A.A. Vol. X, No. iii, p. 136.
21 5
To continue reading
Request your trial