Due Process and Legal Pluralism in Sierra Leone: The Challenge of Reconciling Contradictions in the Laws and Cultures of a Developing Nation (From Comparative Criminal Justice: Traditional and Nontraditional Systems of Law and Control, P 344- 361, 1996, Charles B Fields and Richter H Moore, Jr, eds.

• NCJ Number: 161157
• Author(s): R B Thompson
• Date Published: 1996
• Length: 18 pages
• Sale Source: Waveland Press, Inc.
• Publication Type: Issue Overview
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This paper considers the challenge posed by the impact of legal pluralism on the concept of due process and its application in the west African state of Sierra Leone, a former British territory that is struggling to adapt traditional African cultural values to the modernizing demands and pressures of Western values inherited from Britain.

Abstract

The paper begins with a review of the social structure of Sierra Leone society and its legal system and an assessment of its commitment to due process. It then explores African regional and international trends that affirm the right to legal representation as a core doctrine of criminal procedure aimed at ensuring due process in adjudication. Next, an overview is presented of the theory and practice of the due process model of justice in the United States, where it is found in its most articulate and developed form. The author then examines due process under both the customary and general law systems in Sierra Leone. It concludes with an analysis of the efficacy of the right to counsel and an articulation of some of the contradictory dimensions of the two normative systems in relation to the values and norms that form the foundation of Western culture, on the one hand, and those underlying traditional African society on the other. A 27-item bibliography