(Update: the report described below is actually from 2009, not new.  Still interesting, though.)

Via Shelby Grossman, a very interesting new 2009 USIP report on the Liberian justice system, which is a hybrid of a “formal” system based on the U.S. justice system, and a “traditional” system that relies on local chiefs to mediate and resolve disputes.  The researchers found widespread mistrust of the formal system, including a general belief that it only served the interests of those who had money to pay for lawyers and substantial court “fees.”

I thought this part was particularly interesting:

“Most Liberians would still be unsatisfied with the justice meted out by the formal system, even if it were able to deliver on [its basic stated mission].  This is because the core principles of justice that underlie Liberia’s formal system, which is based on the American legal system, differ considerably from those valued by most Liberians.[...]

[There is a deeply held assumption in Liberia]  that incorrect or injurious behavior is usually rooted in damaged and acrimonious social relations. Redressive action is thus considered deficient if it does not also produce reconciliation among the parties. [...]

Our research indicates that there are cases in which behavior is judged to be so horrific that perpetrators are viewed as entirely beyond social repair, and in which Liberians often demand extreme forms of justice such as the death sentence. However, in the vast majority of situations, including many cases of murder and rape, social reconciliation is viewed as a more important objective than punishment per se. In fact, the infliction of some form of pain or loss (social, physical, economic) upon a perpetrator in a manner that does not directly contribute to reconciliation is seen as augmenting adversarialism in undesirable ways that impede, rather than contribute  to, true justice.”

This has some pretty interesting implications: it suggests that the more the formal justice system succeeds, the more it will fail, because the better it gets at delivering dispassionate, rules-based judgments, the less legitimacy it will have within Liberian society.

Things that make you go hmmm…