The Resolution Of Inter-personal Conflict Of Law In Zimbabwe

There has been great improvement in the trade between China and Zimbabwe in recent years. There will unavoidably appear many disputes in the mutual civil and commercial transactions and the law may become the compulsory choice of the parties as a way to solve their disputes. However, articles or works have not been written about the law especially the conflict rules of Zimbabwe in China up to now, so it is necessary to have a study of the conflict of law of Zimbabwe at present.As an ancient country in Africa, Zimbabwe, with a long history and unique culture tradition, once became a British colony, and became an independent country ruled by blacks in 1980. During the colonial period, the British government transplanted its common law to South Rhodesia in an indirect way, on the other hand, the customary laws which had a long history were kept, but they were ruled to only apply to the natives. After the independence of Zimbabwe, its constitution decided that the received common law and the customary law are the most important parts of the systems of Zimbabwe's law. Because of the historic and cultural elements, the common law and the customary law both have a character of personal law. So when the two rules are both potentially applicable to the same set of facts, the inter-personal conflict of the laws will occur.The inter-personal conflict of laws is often solved by the written rules of the choice of law which regulates the courts applying the customary law and the recognition and application of customary law. There are two periods about the development of the resolution of the conflict of the inter-personal laws: colonial period and independent period. During the colonial period, there were different ways in different stages just to meet the colonial policy, which includes three stages. Firstly , at the early time the rules changed from time to time because at that time the new colonial area was still in trouble. Secondly, in 1937, the Native Law and Courts Act with strong racialism was passed, which copied the South Africa the Native Administration Act of 1927. Finally, in 1969, the African Law and Tribal Courts Act was passed, which radically changed the approach to the inter-personal conflict of laws and reorganized the structure of the courts, which led to a basically unconnected, tripartite court system, and at the same time provided new grounds for the application of the customary law. After independence, the Customary Law and Primary Courts Act of 1981 abolished the tripartite court structure and the judicial functions of the traditional African leaders,...