Procedures
A 1983 civil procedure act in an Anglo-Islamic hybrid, with courts displaced by war
The Civil Procedure Act 1983 governs, retaining English-derived structure. The Supreme Court sits at the apex, but court infrastructure in Khartoum has been extensively damaged and the judiciary displaced since April 2023.
Key rules
- Jurisdiction — National. The Supreme Court is the final appellate court; a Constitutional Court was provided for but not effectively constituted.
Governing law
- Civil Procedure Act 1983
- Judiciary Act 1986
- Arbitration Act 2016
- New York Convention — Sudan acceded in 2018
In practice
Sudanese procedure reflects the country's layered legal history: English-derived civil procedure and court structure from the Anglo-Egyptian period, overlaid after 1983 with Islamic substantive law. Pleadings, interlocutory applications and execution follow recognisably common-law shapes, while the substantive rules applied come from the Civil Transactions Act and Islamic principles. Arbitration was modernised in 2016 and Sudan acceded to the New York Convention in 2018, which improved the position for foreign investors on paper. The practical position is that since April 2023 courts in Khartoum have been damaged or closed, records have been lost, and judicial functions have partially relocated to Port Sudan; whether and where a civil claim can be brought and enforced is not something open sources allow to be stated, so this is recorded as research.