A Milestone in the Integration of Personal Laws

When the Commission on the Law of Marriage and Divorce in Kenya presented its Report in 1968, the basic scheme of its proposals, and the draft Bill it had prepared for the reform and integration of the laws, were widely welcomed and it has been a disappointment to many—not least, it may be supposed, to the members of the Commission—that four years have passed without those proposals having been translated into statutory form in Kenya. It is a little ironic, though no doubt an interesting example of East African inter-dependence, that the essential basis of those proposals, and indeed in many respects the detailed draft provisions which accompanied them, have now been given their first legislative effect not in Kenya but in Tanzania.