{"id":2872,"date":"2012-07-01T11:10:15","date_gmt":"2012-07-01T11:10:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/socio-cultural-anthropology\/?p=423"},"modified":"2018-09-12T14:52:39","modified_gmt":"2018-09-12T14:52:39","slug":"legal-innovation-in-papua-new-guinea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/2012\/07\/01\/legal-innovation-in-papua-new-guinea\/","title":{"rendered":"Legal Innovation in Papua New Guinea"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"a<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Principal Investigator:<\/th>\nDr Melissa Demian<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Project dates:<\/th>\n1 June 2012 – 31 May 2015<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Funding:<\/th>\n\u00a0ESRC<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Collaborators:<\/th>\nCo-I Dr Michael Goddard, Macquarie University, Sydney<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Project Details:<\/h3>\n

Papua New Guinea’s system of Village Courts, initiated at the country’s independence in 1975, provide a valuable test case\u00a0in the integration of less formal, local-level adjudication forums within a formal legal structure.\u00a0 The courts were designed to\u00a0provide rural communities with access to the legal system, and also to provide this access in a form that would suit local\u00a0sensibilities, for instance by placing less emphasis on a distinction between civil and criminal cases. \u00a0In the 35 years that have passed since their inauguration, Village Courts have undergone some important developments\u00a0and transformations, not all of them welcomed by the legal establishment of Papua New Guinea.\u00a0 Village Courts have\u00a0appeared in cities and towns.\u00a0 They have begun to hear cases outside of their jurisdiction, such as land claims and murder\u00a0trials.\u00a0 They take very seriously the widespread concern in the country about witchcraft and sorcery, which cannot be\u00a0legally recognised in the higher courts.\u00a0 The services of so-called ‘bush lawyers’ with no formal qualifications have arisen,\u00a0when Village Courts were intended to be free from the interference of lawyers or other legal specialists.\u00a0 These and other\u00a0irregularities in Village Court practice are seen by legal elites in the country as signs that the system is in trouble, and is in\u00a0need of bringing back into line with the courts’ proper functioning as delineated in their original remit.<\/p>\n

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village reconciliation meeting<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

This project proposes instead to approach the developments in the Village Courts as signs of a system that is doing precisely\u00a0what it was supposed to do: to fulfill locally-determined desires for justice and adjudication.\u00a0 That it has adapted to different\u00a0needs in different parts of this extremely diverse country is an indication that the flexibility of the Village Courts is something\u00a0to be examined as an indication that Papua New Guinea’s legal system is one in which the delivery of justice is not always\u00a0designed in a top-down fashion from the centre, but can and does develop organically at the grassroots level. \u00a0In order to do this, the project will draw on the skills of two anthropologists with longstanding research interests in the\u00a0operation of Papua New Guinea’s legal system, with the assistance of students from the University of Papua New Guinea\u00a0who will contribute knowledge of local languages (the country boasts some 800 languages) as well as local variations in\u00a0social organisation and cultural values.\u00a0 The project team will conduct the first broad survey of Village Court practice since\u00a0the 1970s, with an eye to documenting precisely how the courts have adapted to local needs and sensibilities since their\u00a0inception.<\/p>\n

The significance of this research is twofold.\u00a0 Firstly, Papua New Guinea is a country that is chronically at pains to divest\u00a0itself of the reputation of being a ‘failed state’ with non-functioning instruments of civil society.\u00a0 The project offers a re-framing of Village Court innovations from indicating a breakdown of the legal system to indicating that the legal system is\u00a0adapting in necessary – and highly functional – ways. \u00a0Secondly, there is a burgeoning interest internationally in informal or community-oriented systems of justice delivery and\u00a0adjudication.\u00a0 From the reconciliation commissions that have sprung up in the wake of conflicts around the world, to the\u00a0adoption of restorative justice alternatives in the British criminal justice system, the operation and development of informal\u00a0courts in one part of the world has profound implications for how courts and other forms of justice delivery can develop\u00a0elsewhere.\u00a0 Papua New Guinea has inherited the essential structure and tenets of its legal system from the United\u00a0Kingdom and other Commonwealth states.\u00a0 The way its own courts have developed since independence offer a model for\u00a0how the delivery of justice and equity can adapt to local sensibilities in common law jurisdictions throughout the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Principal Investigator: Dr Melissa Demian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40284,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[159350],"tags":[588],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2872"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40284"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2872"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2872\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2886,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2872\/revisions\/2886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}