Samoa

• The Constitution of 1960, the highest law
• Acts of Parliament, and English common law and equity
• Customary law, especially the matai system of chiefly titles and family land
• Decisions of the Supreme Court and the Land and Titles Court

• The Court of Appeal
• The Supreme Court
• The District Court, and the Land and Titles Court for customary land and titles

A law degree, often from a New Zealand or Australian university, then admission by the Supreme Court.

• A court exists just for matai titles and customary land, and it sits apart from the other courts.
• Most land is customary land, held by families under the authority of a chief.
• The Constitution recognises both individual rights and the matai system.

Tonga, Fiji, New Zealand, Solomon Islands, Kiribati

The University of Ottawa’s JuriGlobe database lists Samoa as: Common 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.

Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Canada, Cook Islands, Dominica, Fiji, Ghana, Grenada, India, Ireland, Jamaica.

• PacLII: Pacific Islands Legal Information Institute
• JuriGlobe: world legal systems (University of Ottawa)
• Constitute Project: constitution of Samoa

Sources last reviewed: October 2026.