Indigenous Forums: Laughed Out of Court?

‘Paper Promises: The Constitutional Prescription of Customary Law in the Northern Territory’, (1999) 24(5) Alt LJ 221.

Gray Stephen , ‘Monsters Round the Stomping Ground: An Alternative Dispute Resolution Proposal for Indigenous Communities in the Northern Territory’, (1999) 25(4) Alt LJ 216.

The topic is definitively researched and discussed in the ALRC ‘eport, ‘The Recognition of Aboriginal Customary Laws’, Report No 31, 1986, at Vol 2, Part VI, 27 to 31, which also summarises past attempts at implementing local courts. Interestingly such courts were proposed in the Northern Territory in 1938, legislated for in 1940 but never got off the launching pad.

General Assembly Resolution 2200A (XXI) of 16 December 1966.

Chanock M. , Law, Custom and Social Order: The Colonial Experience in Malawi and Zambia, Heinemann, 1998, p.4.

Powles G. , ‘Common law at bay? The Scope and Status of Customary Law Regimes in the South Pacific’, (1997) 21 Journal of Pacific Studies 61 at 78.

See Woodman G. , ‘Studying the Laws: Respecting Customary Law in the Curriculum’, (1987) 15 Melanesian Law Journal 118.

Court of Summary Jurisdiction, Northern Territory, Gillies SM , 20 February 1998 reported at (1999) AILR 29.

See the references in the brief in this issue of Alt LJ by Gray Stephen , ‘Gill Nets at Bul Gul’.

There is an abundance of material canvassing this issue: for an illuminating account see Hazlehurst Kayleen M. , ‘Australian Aboriginal Experiences of Community Justice’ (1991) 6 Law and Anthropology 45.

See Chanock , above, pp. 6–7.

Epstein A.L. , Politics in an Urban African Community, Manchester University Press 1958. Other research supports Epstein's basic findings: See Smith D.M. , ‘Man and Law in Urban Africa: A Role for Customary Courts in the Urbanisation Process’, (1972) 20 American Journal of Comparative Law 223, (Nigeria) and more recently Zorn, Jean G. , ‘The Papua New Guinea Village Courts’, (1990) 2(2) Contemporary Pacific, (Papua New Guinea).