tRaditional authoRity, loCal GoVERnmEnt & JustiCE 191connotations; in southern Sudan the usual term now is Traditional
Authorities).
However much the judicial powers of the Native Administration were
related to their government work, the resulting courts nevertheless came
to be utilized by people in their quest to win local disputes. In John’s
area, colonial officials noted that local people quickly realized that the
new courts kept written records and that they were more likely to be
able to make future claims or call in debts if the original transaction or
case had been recorded by the chiefs. Across Sudan, the Native Admin-
istration courts drew on the backing of state force in ways that were
far from traditional, though there was some precedent in precolonial
states such as the Darfur Sultanate. But this backing could also make
them more effective and swift at enforcing their decisions, and so they
gradually became established and accepted, operating alongside other
forms of dispute resolution such as councils of elders or the mediation
of spiritual leaders. In southern Sudan, the chiefs’ courts amalgamated
local judicial principles with those of the colonial government to produce
hybrid legal systems. Across northern Sudan, customary justice was
further complicated by Islamic sharia law. The 1902 Mohammedan Law
Courts Ordinance recognized the pre-eminence of shari’a in matters of
family and marital law, including inheritance. Yet civil courts and the
Native Administration courts have also applied sharia law in such cases,
provided they have a learned or semi-learned alim or religious sheikh as
a court member.
The fusion of judicial and administrative powers in the Native Admin-
istration has long been a source of complaint. Another enduring and
contentious aspect of British policy was the direct relation of administra-
tive structures to territory and land rights. In much of northern Sudan,
communal land rights were entrenched as a system of tribal homelands
or dars, each of which also defined the jurisdiction of a paramount chief,
usually called a nazir or sultan. So the larger tribes gained control of
territory and the privilege of a powerful head, recognized by the govern-
ment. Yet the neat tribal patchwork that British officers envisaged neverThe Sudan Handbook, edited by John Ryle, Justin Willis, Suliman Baldo and Jok Madut Jok. © 2011 Rift Valley Institute and contributors materialized, because territories were not ethnically homogenous.
(www.riftvalley.net).