The harmonising of legal practice in the East African Community(EAC) has the potential to be beneficial to member states. This is because this process would lead to the adoption of laws that favour their peoples and discard those that don’t. There are obvious changes that the peoples of the eac will find a blessing in disguise. For instance, women would love to have laws that promote gender equality, as is found in Rwanda. Similarly, Rwandans would probably like to have laws that loosen the strings of marriage contracts. The ‘til death does us part’ vow should be made flexible. The civil law practiced in Rwanda is much more rigid when it comes to marital affairs if compared to that in other East African nations. Here in Rwanda, couples are forced to contin ue living together because divorce is so hard to get. Certainly, there are a few good things accrued in having rigid laws but the disadvantages tend to out weigh the few postives. There have been instances where couples have ended up killing each other because they couldn’t get a divorce easily enough and were forced to stay together even when the marriage had hit the rocks. This isn’t the same story in Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya where they practice Common Law. Common-law marriage, sometimes called ‘de facto marriage’,’ informal marriage’ or ‘marriage by habit and repute’, is a form of interpersonal status which is legally recognized in some jurisdictions as a marriage even though no legally recognized marriage ceremony is performed. It is an admirable civil marriage contract. Although it is admired by many, this type of marriage contract and Common law in general has some inherent problems. This is why I agree with members of African Law Society, when they say that, “a hybrid that picks the best practices of the Common law and Civil is the most suitable”. However, the African Law Society must make thorough scientific research to find out what the commonman in the member states wants and needs. If they don’t do so, and then end up hoisting some ‘hybrid model’ on us all, they shall have done us a great disservice.Although civil marriage and a religious marriage have the same legal value and impose, we need to draw a positive dichotomy. The peoples of the East African Community should therefore be able to draw on the advantages of both the Common law and Civil legal heritage and come up with a ‘people’ friendly hybrid. Let the laws that will be enacted in the name of the EAC be pro-people’s, matching today’s demands. mugitoni@yahoo.com
