Legal Innovation in Papua New Guinea

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Papua New Guinea's system of Village Courts, initiated at the country's independence in 1975, provide a valuable test case in the integration of less formal, local-level adjudication forums within a formal legal structure. The courts were designed to provide rural communities with access to the legal system, and also to provide this access in a form that would suit local sensibilities, for instance by placing less emphasis on a distinction between civil and criminal cases.In the 35 years that have passed since their inauguration, Village Courts have undergone some important developments and transformations, not all of them welcomed by the legal establishment of Papua New Guinea. Village Courts have appeared in cities and towns. They have begun to hear cases outside of their jurisdiction, such as land claims and murder trials. They take very seriously the widespread concern in the country about witchcraft and sorcery, which cannot be legally recognised in the higher courts. The services of so-called 'bush lawyers' with no formal qualifications have arisen, when Village Courts were intended to be free from the interference of lawyers or other legal specialists. These and other irregularities in Village Court practice are seen by legal elites in the country as signs that the system is in trouble, and is in need of bringing back into line with the courts' proper functioning as delineated in their original remit.This project proposes instead to regard the developments in the Village Courts as signs of a system that is doing precisely what it was supposed to do: to fulfill locally-determined desires for justice and adjudication. That it has adapted to different needs in different parts of this extremely diverse country is an indication that the flexibility of the Village Courts is something to be examined as an indication that Papua New Guinea's legal system is one in which the delivery of justice is not always designed in a top-down fashion from the centre, but can and does develop organically at the grassroots level.In order to do this, the project will draw on the skills of two anthropologists with longstanding research interests in the operation of Papua New Guinea's legal system, with the assistance of students from the University of Papua New Guinea who will contribute knowledge of local languages (the country boasts some 800 languages) as well as local variations in social organisation and cultural values. The project team will conduct the first broad survey of Village Court practice since the 1970s, with an eye to documenting precisely how the courts have adapted to local needs and sensibilities since their inception.The significance of this research is twofold. Firstly, Papua New Guinea is a country that is chronically at pains to divest itself of the reputation of being a 'failed state' with non-functioning instruments of civil society. 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 adapting in necessary - and highly functional - ways. Secondly, there is a burgeoning interest internationally in informal or community-oriented systems of justice delivery and adjudication. From the reconciliation commissions that have sprung up in the wake of conflicts around the world, to the adoption of restorative justice alternatives in the British criminal justice system, the operation and development of informal courts in one part of the world has profound implications for how courts and other forms of justice delivery can develop elsewhere. Papua New Guinea has inherited the essential structure and tenets of its legal system from the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth states. The way its own courts have developed since independence offer a model for how the delivery of justice and equity can adapt to local sensibilities in common law jurisdictions throughout the world.