The Resonance of Colonial Era Customary Codes in Contemporary Uganda

Colonial era codifications of customary law – especially those codified in indigenous first languages – have a resilient capacity to form and inform living customary law. In the context of Mukono District, Uganda, modern conceptions of customary law are informed and shaped by colonial era codifications promulgated by the British Protectorate and the Kingdom of Buganda. This research insight offers practical benefits to those seeking to promote access to justice and human rights development in Mukono District. Such benefits speak to the potential vitality and relevance of colonial era customary codifications. Misgivings about the alien influences and exploitative purposes that distorted and corrupted colonial era codes do not warrant disregard of their active legacy within modern customary legal frameworks. The use of receptive research approaches such as those developed and modelled by Sally Falk Moore can help ensure the ongoing influence of colonial era codes are not hidden by contemporary orthodoxies and biases.


Introduction
Discerning customary law in post-colonial contexts requires careful attention to detail and nuance. The process is highly situational and varies based on history, culture, time and place. Contextual specificity and receptiveness to a broad array of sources and influences is critical when discerning the lived law in post-colonial contexts.
A growing appreciation of deep legal pluralism and Sally Falk Moore's 1 semi-autonomous social field approach has led researchers to cast wide nets when determining what sources contribute to community-level legal norms and practices. Yet, despite the rise of inclusive research approaches, there are legal sources that receive little notice or recognition. This paper concerns one such sourcecolonial era codifications of customary law.
This paper makes the case for the continuing resonance and significance of colonial era customary codifications in modern-day Mukono District, Uganda. It begins with a contextual introduction. Next, it outlines reasons why colonial era customary codifications are overlooked and disregarded. The paper then recounts the research approach, literature review and field work outputs that led the author to take account of colonial era customary codifications in Mukono District. That is followed with postulations as to why colonial era customary codifications remain effectual and resilient within Mukono's customary legal frameworks. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications and applications of the core research findings.

Colonialism and the recoding of customary law in Africa
When European colonialists ventured into Africa, they encountered unwritten indigenous laws and legal systems. The clash of colonising cultures resulted in a somewhat predictable responsethe written formalisation of indigenous law by European hook, crook or code. 2 Multiple motives were behind European efforts to record indigenous laws. The colonialists were culturally predisposed to see the written law as superior to the unwritten law. Europeans had a historically rooted bias The process of recording customary law often fell captive to power and influence. European powers managed and manipulated customary legal systems to their benefit. 3 By taking an active role in the formalising of indigenous laws and legal systems, the European powers could exercise power and control over their colonial domains through a means that appeared to give deference and autonomy to indigenous people.
Other motivations were more openly pragmatic. Written laws were seen as a means of increasing access to formal justice and providing civil order. Also, if the Europeans were to be in the ultimate sources of power, they needed to understand the rules of the indigenous games they oversaw. 4 Colonial customary formalisation was not implemented in a uniform manner in sub-Saharan Africa. The sheer number of tribal groups and their languages made the project of customary codification limited and arbitrary. Moreover, each European power had its own legal traditions and distinctive approaches to indigenous engagement.
In some instances, the recording of indigenous law was the result of a particular Western anthropologist's choice to study and record the laws of a particular people. Thorough accounts of customary law appeared within descriptive anthropological works. 5 Some such efforts took on legal importance as de facto authoritative treatises on the law of the subject people group. In other instances, indigenous laws were reported within formal legal codes generated with the blessing of or in partnership with colonial ruling powers.
The sustained reach of the European colonial project in Africa depended on the use of soft power. Despite advantages in weaponry and political scale, European nations could not maintain effective control over the distant and vast African continent through military might and bureaucratic manpower. 3 Glenn 1997 Am J Comp L 613. 4 In the British colonial tradition, the legal concept of "repugnancy" gave colonial arbitrators and administrators the power to disregard indigenous laws and practices if they found them to be offensive to their own moral standards. Other means were needed to exercise effective power and control. Examples included the strategic exploitation of religion, the use of trade, and partnerships with selected tribes for the purpose of exerting influence within a wider geographic sphere. 6 The hegemonic utilisation of strategic tribal partnerships impacted the existence and extent of colonial era recording of indigenous law.
3 The formal treatment of customary law in Uganda from colonialism to the present The customary codifications pertaining to Buganda were stripped of any formal legitimacy at the time of Ugandan independence in 1962. 14 When Uganda became a sovereign nation, the elimination of second-class colonial era citizenship resulted in the laws that formerly applied to the British applying to all Ugandans. So called "native laws" lost their subjects and their legal relevance. By way of example, the Succession Act of 1906 that had initially applied to British subjects became the universal formal law of succession in Uganda and officially displaced contrary and inconsistent customary laws and practices.
However, the transition to national formal laws could not be effectively implemented in lived environments by legal fiat. Customary practices in areas such as succession and guardianships remained dominant in practice and still do to this day. 15 The colonial era customary codes in Uganda experienced a second formal death after independence. This is because the formal means of establishing, recognising and enforcing customary law did not regard these colonial era codifications as legitimate sources of customary law. Instead, the rules of evidence inherited from the British required that customary law be established based on what the law has been since time immemorialcolonial era codifications on current beliefs and memories about customary laws and practices is impossible to assess with any specificity. 14 The post-independence displacement of customary law did not result in the displacement of the Mailo landholding system established under British rule in Buganda Kingdom lands. Mailo is a hybrid system. It combines aspects of precolonial Buganda customary land tenure with a formal, recoded system of land tenure. It is based on a tribute concept and provides peasants with the opportunity to maintain derivative title in the land that they use and occupy. This unique system of landholding is established through statute and is still in place in modern day Uganda. Section 55 of the Registration of Titles Act, 1924 (Uganda). It is the dominant form of landholding in the historic Buganda lands in south central Uganda. 15 In Mukono District, the formal legal system is largely irrelevant or otherwise inaccessible to most people. In post-colonial contexts, certain sources of customary law have fallen into political disrepute or have been pushed out of the collective imaginations of the scholars and policy mavens concerned with customary law. This section addresses biases that could cause a researcher to fail to appreciate the contemporary relevance and influence of colonial era customary codifications.

Political biases
Colonialism in Africa is rightly vilified. It is linked to racism, human rights abuses, greed, violence and abuse of power. Colonialism runs counter to broadly embraced political rights such as the right to self-government and a peoples' right to self-determination. As a result, palpable taboos are associated with the work and legacy of colonial enterprises.
Anti-colonialism engenders a collective push to discard all colonial vestiges upon the proverbial ʺash heap of historyʺ. This push is particularly strong in the context of post-colonial Africa and in the field of indigenous law. However, these biases against colonialism should not distort research or prevent the reporting of findings that speak an ongoing colonial impact.

Biases against the formalisation of customary law
The 1960s and 1970s were marked with various efforts to develop authoritative recordings of customary law in post-colonial Africa. From an access to justice standpoint, there was a belief that such codifications would help to make customary law better known and add to its legitimacy. In the midst of post-colonial pan-Africanism, the prevalent view was that the recording of customary law could be useful in the ongoing de-colonisation project. Although no significant post-colonial customary formalisation initiative took root in Uganda, such efforts were fairly common across Africa. Among the most famous was a nation-wide customary recording project led by Professor Anthony Allot in neighbouring Kenya. 19 Efforts to formalise customary law face considerable criticism within academic and policy circles. In the wake of the work of Allot and others, Ranger 20 offered a trenchant and authoritative criticism of the invention of distorted versions of customary law in colonial Africa. Today, the transcription, proof and formal practice of customary law remains susceptible to abuses of power and influence. 21 The formalisation of customary law is further critiqued as an exercise that strips the ownership of legal customs from the people on the ground to those managing the drafting process. Thus thought and policy leaders in the academic and policy circles commonly consider the recording of customary law to be antithetical to its adaptive and communal essence. 22 However, the tendency of authoritative renditions of customary law to be flawed or illegitimate does not warrant disregard of the potential role and impact of colonial era customary codes. On the contrary, such concerns make their impact all the more important to consider and assess. 19 See Allot ʺIntroduction" xi-xv for a description of this process by Professor Allot. 20 Ranger "Invention of

Pro-formalist biases
While biases against formalism in customary contexts can engender disregard for colonial-era customary codes, biases for legal formalism and assumptions about a progression towards increasing legal formalism can also prevent legal observers from detecting and appreciating the ongoing role and influence of such codes.

The formalist approach to establishing customary law in Uganda
The evidentiary approach to proving customary law in Uganda directs judges to only recognise customary law as it existed from "time immemorialʺ. This requirement makes colonial era customary codes irrelevant in a formal court.
Requiring that a law not be in writing is antithetical to legal formalism. However, it is the formal law itself that has imposed this "time machine" requirement on the appointed cultural diviners of customary law. As the prewritten existence of African indigenous people groups drifts further into the past, the more challenging it becomes to prove and establish customary law. In the end, the seemingly informal requirement of "time immemorial" makes the informal law effectively irrecoverable and thereby effectively irrelevant.

The presumption of progress towards formalism
There is a contemporary emphasis on legal formalism and its capacity to bring access to justice and transformative change. This emphasis to promote access to justice is particularly strong in globalist and Western initiatives. The United Nations 23 publication Making the Law Work for Everyone is emblematic of this effort where enabling increasing numbers of presently disenfranchised poor to access the formal justice sector is the desired endgame. Similarly, Haugen and Boutros 24 stress the need for legal accountability to build and maintain a functioning and productive society.
A core component in access to justice initiatives is the widespread dissemination of formal legal literacy. One ubiquitous means of increasing legal knowledge at the community level is grassroots legal education. In Uganda, those educational activities are referred to as legal sensitisations. Proponents and practitioners of legal sensitisation seek to bridge the knowledge gap between people's understandings and the formal law through the steady sharing of the formal law to local leaders and community members by informed outsiders and formal actors. Public access to the formal legal system is presumed to increase and improve over time through the dissemination of formal legal knowledge.
Those who share in the suppositions described above are not attuned to appreciate the impact of colonial era customary codes on community-level legal knowledge when those codes set forth rules and legal principles consistent with the current formal law. Instead, any consistent understanding is reflexively attributed to the inculcation of right knowledge of the formal law. This is despite the fact that formal law might have no causal relationship with a congruent understanding of the law. Moreover, those with this bias are also more likely to attribute beliefs that are inconsistent with the formal law to longstanding cultural beliefs as opposed to attributing them to a pre-existing legal source. An anecdotal illustration of how such biases concerning the sourcing of legal knowledge and awareness can impact the ability to detect the potential role and impact of colonial-era customary codes is provided in sub-section 5.3 below.

Discovering the resonance of customary codifications
Having accounted for the biases and blind spots that prevent researchers from attending to the resonance of colonial era customary codes, this next section unpacks particular reasons for the author's discovery of the same in Mukono District. 25 Moore's 28 approach is resilient against biases and preconceptionsespecially when it comes to the validity and potency of sources of law.

The receptivity of Moore's semi-autonomous social field
Aligning the research approach with Moore's design insights helped to protect the fieldwork from the influence of academic orthodoxy, political values and personal biases. At the same time, the open and researchguided field work created the space needed to make unexpected findings.

Reading Haydon
Reading Law and Justice in Buganda by Haydon in connection with my doctoral deskwork felt anachronistic. The 1960 text was published two years before Ugandan independence by a non-Ugandan. It is a relatively dated work by a cultural outsider.
Had there been similarly comprehensive treatments of Baganda customary law of a more recent vintage, the Haydon book might have received no more than a cursory read. Yet as other reading materials had failed to render Haydon non-essential, I set aside my own biases against the text and spent a considerable amount of time reading Haydon's book.
Although Haydon 29 primarily addressed observed cultural and customary practices, he did not disregard the existence and importance of colonial era customary codifications. He referenced these codifications in his text and included them in appendices. 30 Based on other initial reading, I was predisposed against the relevance of these colonial era customary codes. Yet, as the research progressed, the need to take stock of colonial era codifications of Buganda customary law became apparent.

IJM field research in Mukono District
Another circumstance that brought out the relevance and resonance of colonial era customary codifications arose out my involvement and 27 Moore 1973  IJM is an American non-governmental organisation motivated by a Biblical mandate to seek justice. 32 It describes itself as "a global organisation" dedicated to "protecting the poor from violence throughout the developing world". 33 Access to justice through the formal sector is at the core of IJM founder Gary Haugen's 34 strategy to combat injustice.
IJM establishes partnerships with local authorities to address injustices experienced by vulnerable people. 35 Its model for promoting transformative change begins by identifying scenarios where the formal law of a nation has the capacity to bring about positive change. IJM justice initiatives involve the strategic leveraging of the formal law's capacity to stop and redress ongoing injustices. IJM combats sex trafficking in Cambodia and the Philippines by bringing resources alongside the criminal justice system. It combats slavery in India through similar means. In Uganda, IJM addresses the widespread practice of taking of land from widows and their children when the male head of their household dies. IJM refers to this phenomenon as ʺproperty-grabbingʺ.
Ugandan law has numerous provisions in the formal law that forbid the practice of property grabbing. 36 IJM combats the practice through a multipronged approach which includes community sensitisation, will-writing clinics, the support of local law enforcement to address ʺproperty grabbingʺ as a criminal enterprise, and the litigation of civil cases on behalf of victims. IJM hopes that correct and widespread knowledge of the formal law along with access to justice will help to reduce the practice of property grabbing and protect widows and their children. 37 IJMʹs efforts to combat property grabbing began in Mukono District over a decade ago. 38  District prior to beginning its work. 39 The study investigated the extent of property grabbing in Mukono District, people's knowledge of the formal laws that protect against property grabbing, and people's willingness and ability to engage the formal legal system to address property grabbing. Based on its initial study, IJM rolled out its multi-pronged effort described in the previous paragraph.
In 2014, IJM concluded a more expansive study in Mukono District. 40 The stated purpose of the survey was as follows: 41 … to document the prevalence and impact of property grabbing among widows in Uganda and the effectiveness of the Ugandan public justice system's response to property grabbing.
The study's participants were asked questions about Ugandan law. IJM sought to assess the grass-roots knowledge of formal Ugandan law relevant to succession and land-grabbing. 42 The results of IJM's study in terms of community legal knowledge was mixed. 43 In some instances, there was a relatively high level of knowledge about relevant laws while in other areas the knowledge was relatively low. 44 The IJM study attributed the inconsistencies in community member legal knowledge to various factors including a lack of exposure to the formal law and the distorting impact of ʺentrenched ideas and practices of customary lawʺ. 45 However, IJM did not offer specific explanations for what appeared to them to be relatively arbitrary discrepancies with respect to legal knowledge. 46 In particular, IJM was perplexed by relatively high awareness levels of certain laws that did not appear to be indigenous or traditional. Examples of such laws with broad grass-roots appreciation included the recognition of written wills and the right of widows and their children to stay in marital homes after a husband's death.
The IJM study included no reference to or accounting for the colonial era customary codes of the Buganda Kingdom. Non-formal legal knowledge was attributed to the blanket category of "cultural beliefs" or ignorance of 39 The author personally attended the presentation of this paper in a Mukono government building in late 2008. the law. 47 Yet a key for the surprising inconsistencies in the community's legal knowledge could be found in the unmentionedand presumably unaccounted forcolonial era Buganda codes.
In instances where there was a high level of knowledge about seemingly progressive or formalistic practices such the legitimisation of written wills, 48 protecting the rights of the formally unmarried, and provisions that provide widows and orphans with the right to stay in the marital home, such practices are pronounced in colonial era Buganda legislation. 49 Meanwhile, more "regressive" practices that community members continued to view as law such as not allowing women to inherit family land and expansive powers assigned to the customary heir also appear in colonial era codifications. 50 What the IJM research team presumed to be a mix of partial knowledge of the formal law and incorrect cultural beliefs appears instead to be a resilient knowledge of colonial era codifications. 51 IJM's study is representative of the default presumption of progress towards formalism described in section 4.3.2. The IJM research did not consider the possibility that consistencies between beliefs about the law and the formal law were attributable to pre-existing customary codifications. They adhered to default view that a legal understanding consistent with the formal law flows from the top-down dissemination of formal law. However, this view is based on an untested assumption. "Correct" answers about the substance of the formal law can also be the product of consistencies with pre-existing legal knowledge.

47
IJM Property Grabbing from Ugandan Widows 16-17. 48 Colonial codifications concerning written wills merit close attention because the practice of written will writing did not arise until after the arrival of the British. Therefore, it is clear that some portion of Buganda's colonial era codification of customary law was not indigenous. The extent to which the British modified or supplemented customary law and practice through the codification process is beyond the scope of this paper. 49 Haydon Law and Justice in Buganda 222-223, 320-325. 50 See for example s 12 of the Succession Order, 1926 and its Schedule Vida Clause II.

51
A review of colonial era codifications also helped the author make sense of earlier experiences in community will writing clinics the author organised with Ugandan law students. For example, some participants had asked whether a will had to be written in Luganda and stated that they thought that a will written in English was invalid. The fact that people has this understanding of the law made sense to me when I read s 4 of the Succession Order, 1926 which requires that "wills must be legally written in the Native Language of Luganda".

Field interviews pointing to ʺdark matterʺ
Dark matter is the unknown substance that astro-physicists presume to exist because the existence of that matter is necessary to maintain the legitimacy of their knowledge and observations. 52 Astro-physicists have not seen dark matter, but they are confident it must exist based on the operation of gravity and the current reckoning of observable matter in the universe. Although they cannot detect it directly, the scientists can detect it indirectly based on how it impacts the physical matter they can observe.
The detection of dark matter has certain parallels with the detection of customary legal codifications in my interviews of individuals knowledgeable about Baganda customary law. 53 Although the interview subjects never referenced a colonial era customary code directly, the ongoing role and impact of these codes became apparent based on the conduct and answers of the subjects.
Many interview subjects deemed to be knowledgeable about Bugandan custom indicated that there were objective right answers when it came to the substance of Buganda customary law. They would search their memory for a correct answer. They gave the impression that the law was clear, official and long-standing. At the same time, they did not give the impression that they were trying to recall the ways things have been since time immemorial.
In addition, these interview subjects did not treat the current views and practices of the community as authoritative on the substance of Buganda customary law. Instead, they searched their memory for the substance of authoritative content. They would refer to a legal principle as being "there" saying things such as "that one is there". They seemed to be referencing an official rendering of law that served as the basis of the official customary law of the Baganda people. Some interviewees indicated that this official rendering could be accessed if enough effort was applied. However, at no time did an interview subject present me with a written version of this source.
Familiarity with the colonial-era codifications enabled me to connect the interviewees' sense of customary orthodoxy with the once-official 52 Siegel 2018 https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/10/05/this-is-thereal-reason-we-havent-directly-detected-dark-matter/#3b83942432f2. codifications. When I reviewed the IJM findings discussed in sub-section 5.3 in light of this connection, the "dark matter" of the resonance and resilience of colonial era customary codes was too impactful to ignore.

Reasons for colonial code resilience in Mukono District
Certain factors make colonial era customary codes particularly resilient in Mukono District. They are discussed below.

Home-language advantage
English is an official language in Uganda, but it is not the language the vast majority of people regularly speak. The "mother tongue" of the Baganda people and the majority of people living in Mukono District is Luganda.
Given its home-language advantage, the resilience and resonance of colonial era codifications should not come as a surprise. Colonial era codes of the Buganda Kingdom were regularly issued in Luganda. On the other hand, formal Ugandan law is written in English and it has never been officially translated into an indigenous language. In fact, it is difficult to find versions of the Ugandan Constitution drafted in most of Uganda's dozens of indigenous languages despite the fact that its Constitution, promulgated in 1995, provides that: 54 The State shall promote public awareness of this Constitution by translating it into Ugandan languages and disseminating it as widely as possible.
The fact that customary codifications were published in Luganda is important. Even if people never read a customary code, the ability to fact state and share the official substance of the customary code directly in Luganda is significant. If the law is only written in English, it is far less likely to be translated and shared by people who are not comfortable conversing or reading in English.

The written word and the displacement of memory
There are no official versions of customary law in modern-day Uganda. Instead, Ugandan courts require litigants to establish the historic substance of customary law through expert oral testimony. 55 According to the formal law, to be deemed competent to testify about the substance of customary law, a witness must be considered an expert on customary law by 54 community members. 56 This evidentiary approach for establishing customary law arose when older men were deemed stewards of the communal memory concerning life before the British arrived. The customary law they were called to testify about was the law as it existed before the arrival of the written English word. This is referred to as "time immemorial".
Uganda's evidentiary requirement that customary law be the law as it has existed since "time immemorial" reserves formal legitimacy to the customary law as it existed before the arrival of the British. Yet as time passes, the myth of the pristine pre-colonial cultural memory moves further and further outside the range of any plausibility structure. The memories of living Ugandans can no longer stretch back to times predating the adoption of the Buganda Kingdom codes such as the Succession Order of 1926. Thus there is no longer any living memory of "time immemorial" that predates the transcription of customary law into the written word.
The existence of colonial codifications of customary law in the Baganda cultural fabric place the legitimacy of the memory of pre-written law squarely in the dock. Memoryboth personal and collectivehas been at the centre of the process of discerning customary law in Uganda. Yet what is the source of a memory once written artefacts displace lived narratives? Twenty-first century cultural memories about the substance of customary law are now most certainly supplied, influenced or otherwise tainted by recorded media. Among the Baganda, the most formative and historically effectual written media depicting customary law are the colonial era customary codifications of the Buganda Kingdom. The role of the codifications in forming customary orthodoxy at the community level should not come as a surprise.

The Kabaka as lawmaker
Louis XIV of France is famousor infamousfor saying "L'etat c'est moi" ("I am the State"). Although this assertion was a pointed overstatement, certainly the Sun King was more than just a man. As Marin 57 argues, Louis XIV's effectual sovereign status helped to make his own ideas about life the ideas and practices of his people.
Among the Baganda people, the Kabaka, their king, is also more than just a man. In a Kelsenian 58 sense, the Kabaka has long occupied the status of 56 Thus in the broader historic context, the colonial era codifications of Buganda Law are arguably the apex of the written law in the kingdom. This defies modern presumptions that might see such laws as outdated, politically tainted and culturally illegitimate.

Conclusion and broader implications
This paper does not entail a thorough and expansive study of colonial era customary codes on a global or pan-African level. Instead, it presents a singular and relatively fortuitous appreciation about the ongoing resilience of such codes in Mukono District.
The paper posits that current conceptions of Baganda customary law are informed and shaped by the colonial era codifications promulgated by the British Protectorate and the Kingdom of Buganda. This core finding is limited in scope. It should not serve as the basis of sweeping conclusions about the continued importance of colonial era customary codes in other contexts. However, broader implications flow from that limited finding and the analysis put forward in this paper. language and the current formal law has never been translated into that language.
To look to a colonial era customary code as culturally authoritative or currently relevant is contra to the post-colonial orthodoxy. As the formal transcription of customary law in Africa has fallen into disfavour, 66 colonial era customary codifications register somewhere between objectionable artefacts and anathema. Yet, the resilience of colonial era codifications in Mukono District is a phenomenon that should be accounted for regardless of their disfavoured status.
If legal and policy actors put aside the myth of pristine indigenous law, they can take proper stock of the content that generates and forms effectual conceptions of customary law. When encountering and assessing human descriptions and depictions of indigenous law, it is useful to consider legal artefacts with alien pedigrees. In addition, although customary law is certainly "living law" in the sense that is subject to continuous change as well as continuous use, customary law is undoubtedly grounded in and validated by tradition and past practice.
Colonial era codifications of customary lawespecially those codified in indigenous first languageshave the capacity to form and inform living customary law. Even if these codifications are only known through memory, they can continue to exercise an authoritative influence as to what the customary law has always been and therefore should be. Thus, those looking to discern the sourcing and content of customary law should account for the possible impact and influence of colonial era codifications. Misgivings about the oppressive influences and exploitative motivations that played a role in the development of these colonial era codes should not serve as a basis for disregarding their role within modern customary legal frameworks.
The paper also shines critical light on presumptions regarding the dissemination of legal knowledge. As seen in the IJM study, some presume that community knowledge consistent with the formal law is the product of the successful transmittal of formal legal knowledge. However, that presumption can prove false. To appreciate the basis of a community's legal understanding, it is important to account for sources of legal knowledge that predate the formal law. Had IJM appreciated the resonance of colonial era customary codes in Mukono District, it could have added considerable depth and insight to its findings regarding community member legal knowledge. Moreover, such knowledge could have enhanced IJM's strategy for addressing the challenge of property grabbing.
Prevailing orthodoxies have the potential to exert profound and pervasive influence over social science research. Research that affirms politicised conventions offers the path of least resistance.
Yet receptive and openended fieldwork can help generate valuable findings and insights that have the potential of resisting biases. Moore's 67 semi-autonomous social field research approach and other similar approaches provide a means of arriving at findings despite the sway of politically charged orthodoxies. 68 A related tenet of Moore's semi-autonomous social field is the importance of contextual specificity. Culture and history are inherently idiosyncratic. What holds true for one place and people at a certain time may not hold true for other places, peoples and times. For example, this paper addresses how the law-making power of the Kabaka, the unique hegemonic relationship between the Kingdom of Buganda and the British, and the failure to bridge the language gap between the formal law and the people of Mukono District impact the ongoing role of colonial era customary codes. Those details matter. They underline the importance of the singular context that Moore applies to descriptive legal research in highly pluralistic settings.