Sudanese law
Sudan's legal system is layered. Criminal law and personal law for Muslims are derived from Sharia, chiefly through the Criminal Act of 1991 and the Muslim Personal Law Act of 1991. Civil and commercial law follows codes shaped by Egyptian civil law, and court procedure still carries the common-law habits of the Anglo-Egyptian period. The courts run from the town and rural courts through the General Courts and the Courts of Appeal to the National Supreme Court, with a separate Constitutional Court. Arabic and English are both official languages.
Since the war that began in April 2023, millions of Sudanese have been displaced inside the country and abroad, and many courts and registries have been disrupted. Much of the work now is for people outside Sudan who need to deal with property, inheritance, marriage and documents at home, or who need a foreign court or authority to understand what Sudanese law says about their situation.
What he does
- Family and inheritance under the Muslim Personal Law Act and under the customary law of Sudan's non-Muslim communities, including the proof of marriages and divorces for authorities abroad.
- Land and property in Khartoum, Omdurman and the states, including property left behind by people displaced by the war.
- Criminal matters under the Criminal Act of 1991, and the exposure of individuals to its penalties, which many asylum cases abroad turn on.
- Commercial matters for businesses with contracts, debts or partners in Sudan.
- Written legal opinions on any of the above for courts, lawyers and authorities outside Sudan.
Published on Sudanese law
Prof. Jok's 2020 article, Incompatibility of the Principle of Complementarity and Sharia for the Accountability of the Perpetrators of the International Crimes in Sudan's Darfur, examines how Sudan's Sharia-derived Criminal Act collides with the Rome Statute in the prosecution of the Darfur crimes. His 2021 article, The Right of the Amputees in the Sharia Courts of Sudan under International Law, concerns people sentenced to cross-limb amputation under Article 168(b) of the Act between 1983 and 2019. His two books, Conflict of National Identity in Sudan (2013) and Animism of the Nilotics and Discourses of Islamic Fundamentalism in Sudan (2011), examine the constitutional and religious conflict behind the country's wars.
