Burkina Faso
Civil law
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Burkina Faso is a civil-law country with a legal system inherited from France and business law shared with other OHADA countries. Its constitutional arrangements have been interrupted by political events, so this profile describes the formal structure of its courts.
Updated October 2026. Spotted a mistake? Tell us.
Where the law comes from
- The Constitution of 1991, the highest law while it is in force
- Codes and statutes in the French tradition
- OHADA Uniform Acts for business law
- Customary law, in some family and land matters
The main courts
- The Court of Cassation (ordinary cases) and the Council of State (administrative cases)
- The Constitutional Council, and a Court of Audit
- Courts of appeal and first-instance courts
Becoming a lawyer
A law degree and professional training, then registration with the Bar of Burkina Faso.
What may surprise you
- It has separate top courts for ordinary and administrative cases, as in France.
- Constitutional rules have been suspended and replaced by transitional texts at times.
- Business law is shared across West and Central Africa through OHADA.
Related systems
Mali, Niger, Togo, Côte d'Ivoire, France
How this country is classified
The University of Ottawa’s JuriGlobe database lists Burkina Faso as: Civil law, Customary. It names the systems in order of importance.
The map colours a country by the first-named system, and shows both civil-law and common-law countries as “mixed”. It is a simplification, and real systems are rarely pure.
Other countries in the same family
Sources
- OHADA: Organization for the Harmonization of Business Law in Africa
- JuriGlobe: world legal systems (University of Ottawa)
Sources last reviewed: October 2026.
TheLawToKnow Tools’s Legal Families Atlas is an educational overview. It simplifies on purpose, and it is not legal advice. For a real legal question about Burkina Faso, consult a lawyer qualified there. Report a mistake.
