Judiciary of Mauritius

The Judiciary of Mauritius is responsible for the administration of justice in Mauritius and has as mission to maintain an independent and competent judicial system which upholds the rule of law, safeguards the rights and freedom of the individual and commands domestic and international confidence. The Constitution provides for the institution of an independent judiciary which is based on the concept of separation of powers. Mauritius has a single-structured judicial system consisting of two parts, the Supreme Court and the Subordinate Courts. The Subordinate Courts consist of the Court of Rodrigues, the Intermediate Court, the Industrial Court, the District Courts, the Bail and Remand Court, the Criminal and Mediation Court and the Commercial Court. The Chief Justice is head of the judiciary. The Constitution of Mauritius is the supreme legal document of the country. The final appeal from decisions of the Court of Appeal of Mauritius to the Judicial Committee of the Privy council in London as provided for under the Constitution of Mauritius.

As of 2014, a total of 8,594 cases were pending before the Supreme Court of Mauritius. The number of cases before the case decreased by 1 per cent in 2014 compared to 2013, while the number of cases disposed increased by 32 per cent. As much of 42 per cent of cases in district courts were from urban areas, while the Division III of District Court of Port Louis disposed most number of cases in 2014 among all district courts.

The modern system of law in Mauritius is an amalgamation of French civil law and common law, while the civil and criminal proceedings are modelled based on British practice. Supreme Court is established as the highest court of justice and lower courts of namely, the Criminal Court of Procedure and the Civil Court of Procedure. The official language used in the Supreme Court is English.

In 1507 Portuguese sailors came to the uninhabited island and established a visiting base. Diogo Fernandes Pereira, a Portuguese navigator, was the first European known to land in Mauritius and named the island "Ilha do Cirne". The Portuguese did not stay long and did not establish any formal system of Judicial administration. In 1598 a Dutch squadron under Admiral Wybrand Van Warwyck landed at Grand Port and named the island "Mauritius" after Prince Maurice van Nassau of the Dutch Republic, the ruler of his country. France, which already controlled neighbouring Île Bourbon (now Réunion), took control of Mauritius in 1715 and renamed it Isle de France. From 1767 to 1810, except for a brief period during the French Revolution when the inhabitants set up a government virtually independent of France, the island was controlled by officials appointed by the French Government. A Penal Code was published in 1791 and adopted by the Colonial Assembly in 1793, while a separate civil code was promulgated on 3 September 1807. The Supreme Court was established as a supreme body composed of the Prime minister, President, three judges, four clerks and a government commissioner where appeal from neighbouring Seychelles was also allowed.

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