What is Custom?
According to the Black‘s Law Dictionary, Deluxe 9th Ninth custom is ‘is a practice that by its common adoption and long, unvarying habit has come to have the force of law.’ In the quotation of Viner as cited by Allen (1939) and later by Allot (1970), ‘A custom, in the intendment of law, is such a usage as hath obtained the force of law, and is in truth a binding law to such particular places, persons and things which it concerns.’
Definition of Customary Law
Customary law is defined in the Black’s Law Dictionary, Deluxe Ninth Edition as, ―Law consisting of customs that are accepted as legal requirements or obligatory rules of conduct; practices and beliefs that are so vital and intrinsic part of a social and economic system that are treated as if they were laws.
Ghanaian Customary Land Law
Ghana operates a pluralist legal system. Legal pluralism refers to the coexistence of more than one form of law within the same jurisdiction or legal system. This co-existence has not been an altogether easy one, principally in the area of family law and land rights. In the area of land law, the existence of more than one system of law regulating land rights adversely affects the rights of many with regards to access to land and land use.
Generally, the complexity of land rights and security of title is the result of the co-existence of different systems (customary, religious, statutory law, and constitutional) in the regulation of such rights.
This is made complicated by Article 11 of the 1992 Constitution which lists the common law as one of the sources of law in Ghana.
Then Article 11(2) defines the common law of Ghana as comprising the received common law and the rules of customary law. Customary law is defined in Article 11(3) as ―rules of law which are by custom applicable to particular communities in Ghana.