Maybe we should take the legal ways

Citizen engagement with lower state courts in post-war northern Uganda

Datos Bibliográficos

ID4084833
AutoresAnna Macdonald (0000-0001-8873-003X, London School of Economics and Political Science), J Cooper-Knock (0000-0001-5211-2889, University of Sheffield), SJ Cooper-Knock, Julian Hopwood (0000-0003-3257-4992, Ghent University)
Año2022
Volumen56
Número4
Páginas509-531
Fecha de publicación2022-12-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaLaw & Society Review (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0023-9216 • E-ISSN: 1540-5893
EditorialCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1111/lasr.12630
OpenAlexW4309343403
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas2
Referencias citadas58

Lower state courts are the focus of both international and national access to justice policies and programs but remain understudied in Uganda. Drawing on 3 years of ethnographically informed research on citizen engagement with a busy magistrates' court in post-war northern Uganda, we show the diverse reasons why citizens appeal to the rule-of-law in places where state authority is contested. In a context of limited statehood, against a backdrop of high-levels of corruption and inefficiency in the judicial system, people turn to lower state courts for normative, pragmatic, and tactical reasons that are not well captured by conventional measures of procedural justice. Our findings extend theory on citizen-authority relations in a global context, shedding light on contextual meanings of legitimacy, trust, and corruption in places where lower state courts are deeply problematic sites for achieving justice

Accountability · Appeal · Context (archaeology · Economic Justice · Inefficiency · Language change · Legitimacy · Normative · Political science · Politics · Rule of law · Sociology · State (computer science · Transitional justice · Judicial and Constitutional Studies · Land Rights and Reforms · Law · Law in Society and Culture