French magistrates and colonial administrators clashed over criminal jurisdiction over Africans

Evidence

Roume’s commission first gathered in May, to consider the recommendations of the lieutenant governors and draft a decree that would harmonize the administration of native justice in the West African territories. Representatives of the French judiciary and a comparable number of colonial administrators sat on the commission. The latter, however, were assured a preponderant voice, since Roume had made his seasoned secretary general, Martial Merlin, president of the proceedings. The minutes of the commission reveal that the magistrates and the administrators were most divided on the fundamental question of who should have criminal jurisdiction over Africans within the federation. Cougoul, chief of judicial services in the southern colonies, insisted that “sovereign France does not have the right to confer the responsibility of punishing felonies upon anyone other than its magistrates.” African judges, he continued, were “barbaric.” Africans preferred French justice, and it made sense to provide them with the system they had chosen of their own free will. He concluded, in keeping with the professional interests of the French magistrature generally, that French courts should have jurisdiction over the entire federation. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 305