A Note on the Construction of the Gold Coast Reception Statute

From the evidence of the minute paper which preceded the drafting of the first African reception statute, it may be asserted that the intendment of the Colonial Office officials was: (1) that the limiting date in the statute was to apply as well to the common law and the doctrines of equity as to the statutes of general application; (2) that the phrase “Imperial Laws”, refers as well to the common law and doctrines of equity as to the statutes of general application, so that the West African courts were granted a plenitude of power to determine the applicability to local conditions of judge-made law as well as legislation. It is difficult, however, to determine the intendent of the phrase, “statutes of general application”, in the premises.