African Codification Case Study

The law cannot change beliefs. In the case of the sub-Saharan African, there is a fundamental issue with their beliefs of witchcrafts. They believe that every evil and misfortune that is incapable of rational explanation is blamed on witchcraft (P476). A people of that kind of thinking can 't be convinced otherwise by laws or rewritten laws, in other words, the codification of the law that Bentham proposes will not help the sub-Saharan African in this particular predicament. Codification essentially is helpful when trying to present and organize previous law, however, in cases such as witchcraft prosecution in sub-Saharan Africa, it is a social issue that can 't be fixed by codification. It is a societal issue that is embedded within the beliefs of the people if you codify their beliefs you are legitimatizing that belief. If we opt to accept Bentham’s proposal and rewrite preexisting laws that don 't guarantee a change for the betterment of society or the human rights issue at hand. The social norm of the sub-Saharan Africans is to blame a member of the community specifically a woman for the misfortune of someone else. Furthermore, while believers of witchcraft do accept that a person did die from a certain illness which explains the ‘how’ of the misfortune that happened these cultures still seek a metaphysical …show more content…
To liberate these women and to help with the human’s right issue as well as to end witchcraft prosecution there needs to be an education and knowledge that would replace the customs and beliefs not codifying laws that are not being