ACCESS TO JUSTICE FOR THE POOR OF MALAWI? AN ... - GSDRC

democratic environment. In this regard, they highly valued the assistance they obtainfrom village elders and ndunas in dispute settlement. They also called upon thegovernment and NGOs to target them for training and sensitization. They suggestedthe following among other topics:• Human rights;• The Malawi constitution;• Gender issues;• Management (of court);• Dispute resolution skills; and• Sentencing principles.LanguageAs opposed to the formal system that uses English as the official language of the courtand relies on court interpreters, the customary justice system conducts its proceedingsin the local language understood by the parties to the particular dispute. This promotesaccess to justice, as the parties, witnesses and all observers are easily able to followand take part in the proceedings.RecordsCustomary justice forums are by the very nature of their informality not courts ofrecord. However, this depends, to a large extent on two main factors:• The nature and gravity or seriousness of the offence; and• The place of the particular forum in the hierarchy of the traditional justicesystemVillage headmen and chiefs expressed the view that if the case is considered seriousand there is a high likelihood of appeal to a higher traditional authority, attempts willbe made to have ‘notes’ taken of the proceedings and the outcome of the case. Chiefs(at traditional authority level) have clerks for such tasks. To what extent such notesare an accurate and complete reflection of the proceedings is questionable. It is morelikely that much of the recording of cases take place at the highest level in thehierarchy, the T/A level. Indeed, at the court of Paramount Chief Mmbelwa there wasevidence that at such level, much effort is made to keep records.Gender IssuesGender issues receive scant special attention in traditional forums. This could beascribed to the fact that the role of women is delineated by custom within a patriarchalsystem and that only a minority of women are decision-makers within the system.Only four of the 42 traditional authority figures that were interviewed are women.When women were given a platform to speak to the research team on their own theycommented on the lack of freedom for women to express themselves at traditionalforums, since the system favoured men. Women felt that, due to their economic43