The Publicity “Defect” of Customary Law
This paper examines the extent to which dispute resolvers in customary law systems provide widely understandable justifications for their decisions. The paper first examines the liberal-democratic reasons for the importance of publicity, understood...
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| Format: | Policy Research Working Paper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2012
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| Online Access: | http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/main?menuPK=64187510&pagePK=64193027&piPK=64187937&theSitePK=523679&menuPK=64187510&searchMenuPK=64187283&siteName=WDS&entityID=000158349_20100624162025 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/3834 |
| Summary: | This paper examines the extent to which
dispute resolvers in customary law systems provide widely
understandable justifications for their decisions. The paper
first examines the liberal-democratic reasons for the
importance of publicity, understood to be wide accessibility
of legal justification, by reviewing the uses of publicity
in Habermas and Rawls accounts of the rule of law. Taking
examples from Sierra Leone, the paper then argues that
customary law systems would benefit from making the reasons
for local dispute resolution practices, such as
"begging" from elders, witchcraft, and openness of
hearings, more widely accessible. The paper concludes that
although legal pluralism is usually taken to be an
analytical concept, it may have a normative thrust as well,
and that publicity standards would also apply to formal
courts in developing countries, which are also typically
"defective" along this dimension. |
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