Comparison

Read two legal systems against each other

Because every portal follows the same fifteen-section outline, the comparison is genuinely like-for-like rather than a collage of whatever each government happens to publish.

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Comparison of selected legal systems
Attribute	KenyaReviewed	LesothoReviewed	BruneiReviewed
Legal family	Mixed (common law, customary law, Islamic law)	Mixed Roman-Dutch and English common law	Mixed common law and Islamic law
System of government	Unitary presidential republic with devolved counties	Parliamentary constitutional monarchy	Absolute monarchy
Constitution	Constitution of Kenya	Constitution of Lesotho	Constitution of Brunei Darussalam
In force since	2010	1993	1959
Capital	Nairobi	Maseru	Bandar Seri Begawan
Official languages	English, Swahili	Sesotho, English	Malay, English
Currency	Kenyan Shilling (KES)	Lesotho loti (LSL)	Brunei dollar (BND)
Population	55,100,000	2,300,000	450,000
Division of powers	Presidential system with no Prime Minister, a bicameral Parliament of National Assembly and Senate, 47 county governments with their own assemblies and executives, and an independent judiciary supervised by the Judicial Service Commission.	Unitary with ten districts, and a recognised hierarchy of chiefs exercising customary functions over land allocation and local dispute resolution. The Senate includes the twenty-two principal chiefs ex officio.	Unitary, with four districts administered by district officers reporting to the Ministry of Home Affairs. No federal or devolved tier; village and mukim headmen have recognised consultative functions.
How law is made	Bills are read three times with committee scrutiny and public participation, which the courts treat as a justiciable requirement. Bills concerning counties must pass both chambers. The President assents or refers the bill back with reservations, which Parliament may override by two-thirds.	Bills pass three readings in the National Assembly, go to the Senate for review, and receive royal assent. The Senate can delay but not indefinitely block ordinary bills. Amendments to entrenched constitutional provisions require a two-thirds majority and, for the most protected clauses, a referendum.	In form, bills are introduced in the Legislative Council and assented to by the Sultan. In practice the significant instruments are Orders made by the Sultan under the emergency proclamation, which take effect on publication in the Government Gazette without Council passage. The Syariah Penal Code Order 2013 was enacted this way.
Legal profession	Fused: an LLB, the Kenya School of Law advocates training programme, and admission by the Chief Justice produce an advocate of the High Court. The Law Society of Kenya is the professional body; Senior Counsel is the senior rank.	A split profession in form — advocates and attorneys are separately admitted under the Legal Practitioners Act — though in practice many practitioners hold both admissions; the Law Society of Lesotho regulates the attorneys' branch.	Advocates and solicitors are admitted by the High Court under the Legal Profession Act, generally after qualifying in England, Malaysia, Singapore or Australia and completing local requirements. The profession is small — a few hundred practitioners — and foreign counsel may be admitted ad hoc for particular cases. Syariah practice is a separate track: Syariah lawyers are certified under the Syariah Courts Act and appear only in the Syariah hierarchy, so a matter that crosses both systems needs two sets of representation.

A comparison table flattens nuance by design. Where a difference matters to a decision you are making, open both portals and read the section in full — the constitutional detail behind a one-line summary is often the part that governs the outcome.