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IOWA LAW REVIEW
mon-law approach to adjective law should be followed, and consequently,
the idea of a judicial code was abandoned. The draft provisions
on criminal procedure were substantially revised by Sir Charles
Mathew, the President of the High Court, and the Criminal Procedure
Code, promulgated in 1961, is primarily a common-law type code. 2 7 9
The same is true of the Civil Procedure Code, which was promulgated
in 1965.280 An evidence code is now in the process of being drafted,
and it is anticipated that the common-law concept of binding rules of
evidence will form the basis of the code. 28 '
As with the substantive codes, there was no wholesale borrowing
from the law of one country or any type of "reception." A number
of codes were consulted, and various dispositions were taken from
each. - 2 12 There was also a careful adaptation. The codes, as finally
promulgated, were designed to establish a procedural system that
could work in Ethiopia.
This process of adaptation may now be considered. In the first place,
both codes are comparatively brief, the Criminal Procedure Code
containing 224 articles and the Civil Procedure Code containing 483. 283 The goal was to produce a concise work that could be applied by the
judges without too much difficulty. The rules are rather strict, with
little discretion left to the judges. 28 4 [Vol. 53
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Both codes have appendices that
contain model pleadings and other forms which must be employed.
These models will be helpful to the judges and lawyers, many of whom
have had no formal legal training, and they are designed to insure a
uniformity that will reduce errors in practice.
A number of provisions were drafted with a view toward special
problems that edsted because of past practice. This was particularly
true as regards the Criminal Procedure Code. Private proscution
270 See Fisher, Some Aspects of Ethiopian Arrest Law, 3 J. ErTH. L. 463, 464 n.6
(1966).
280 See generally R. SEDLER, ETHiopiAN CivIL PROCEDURE ch. 1 (1967).
281
For a discussion of the distinction between the common-law and civilian
(in this case French) approach to evidence, see R. DAviD & H. DE Vms, supra
note 271, at 74-77. The French judge is given a great deal of discretion under
the principle of intime conviction and is not limited in what he can consider by
rules of evidence.
282
For a discussion of the sources of the Criminal Procedure Code, see Graven,
supra note 274, at 76.
283 Compare the length of the Indian Codes which were the source of a number
of provisions. If the number of articles seems large to the American reader, it
must be remembered that all the procedural "law" is contained in the codes. The
Indian Code, for example, vas intended to be a compilation of many of the rules
of common-law procedure. The codes are applied without reference to a body
of decided cases.
28
4 See the prior discussion as to the necessity for such rules, supra note 278 and
accompanying text.