Customary Law in the Papua New Guinea Village Courts

Abstract

On 16 September 1975, after almost a century of colonial rule, the Pacific Island state of Papua New Guinea became an independent nation.During the colonial period, customary law and traditional dispute settlement processes continued unofficially to guide the everyday lives of the people.But custom was recognized in the official courts only in limited circumstances.At independence, Papua New Guinea, like other newly emergent states, sought to turn away from its colonial past and to weld a unified nation partly through a reaffirmation of precontact customs and traditions.An attempt to integrate customary law into the formal legal system was a major aspect of this program, and among the measures enacted to carry it out was the creation of village courts, which were intended to be forums for the application of customary law and the use of customary dispute settlement methods such as negotiation and mediation.In the first years of their operation the village courts were severely criticized for tending toward excessive legalism, copying the laws and procedures of the imported legal system, and neglecting the informal and compromise-oriented processes of traditional dispute settlement (Gawi, Ghai, and Paliwala 1976;Paliwala 1978;1982;Fitzpatrick 1980;Snyder 1980; lamo 1987).Even those observers who disagreed with the severity of these critiques confirmed that adjudication in the village courts was tending toward formalism, although they found elements of customary law and process in the courts' activities outside official hearings (Scaglion 1979;1983;Scaglion and Whittingham 1985;Westermark

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