Book contents
- Law and the Epistemologies of the South
- CAMBRIDGE STUDIES IN LAW AND SOCIETY
- Law and the Epistemologies of the South
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- Part One The Tragic Optimism of the Law: THE END OF A STORY
- Part Two Epistemologies of the South and the Law
- Part Three The Abyssal Law under the Mode of Abyssal Exclusion
- Part Four Real Legal Utopias: Interrupting the State
- Part Five Real Legal Utopias: Interrupting the Law
- Fourteen Law and Revolution in Portugal: Experiences of Popular Justice after the Carnation Revolution of 1974
- Fifteen Popular Justice in Cape Verde
- Sixteen The Landless Rural Workers’ Movement in Brazil and Its Struggles for Access to Law and Justice
- Seventeen The Law of the Excluded: Indigenous Justice and Plurinationality in Bolivia and Ecuador
- Eighteen Decolonising Justice and Democratic Peace in Colombia
- Part Six Real Legal Utopias: Interrupting Hegemonic Human Rights
- References
- Index
- Cambridge Studies in Law and Society
Fifteen - Popular Justice in Cape Verde
from Part Five - Real Legal Utopias: Interrupting the Law
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 August 2023
- Law and the Epistemologies of the South
- CAMBRIDGE STUDIES IN LAW AND SOCIETY
- Law and the Epistemologies of the South
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- Part One The Tragic Optimism of the Law: THE END OF A STORY
- Part Two Epistemologies of the South and the Law
- Part Three The Abyssal Law under the Mode of Abyssal Exclusion
- Part Four Real Legal Utopias: Interrupting the State
- Part Five Real Legal Utopias: Interrupting the Law
- Fourteen Law and Revolution in Portugal: Experiences of Popular Justice after the Carnation Revolution of 1974
- Fifteen Popular Justice in Cape Verde
- Sixteen The Landless Rural Workers’ Movement in Brazil and Its Struggles for Access to Law and Justice
- Seventeen The Law of the Excluded: Indigenous Justice and Plurinationality in Bolivia and Ecuador
- Eighteen Decolonising Justice and Democratic Peace in Colombia
- Part Six Real Legal Utopias: Interrupting Hegemonic Human Rights
- References
- Index
- Cambridge Studies in Law and Society
Summary
This chapter analyses a different type of the popular justice with reference to Cape Verde Islands after their independence from Portuguese colonialism (1975). It is a form of institutionalised justice, officially recognised as such, incorporated in one way or another into the general justice administration system (which is sometimes broadly described as popular justice in light of its local normative, institutional, cultural, and discursive nature, accessibility and deprofessionalised personnel. The Cape Verde local or people’s courts were founded as an extension of indigenous forms of justice administration created as alternatives to colonial law and justice in the liberated zones in Guinea‑Bissau. They were initially adopted informally, then made official in 1979. Through the local courts, the state aimed to encourage popular participation and create spaces in which community culture could flourish, while the values and actions which they stimulated were defined in terms of political criteria directed towards achieving a higher purpose, namely building socialism. I begin with a close-up of a local court at work on the island of São Vicente, before analysing in detail the interfaces and contradictions between the political and judicial legitimacy of the people’s courts, ending with the conclusions of the research and a postscript written forty years later.
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- Law and the Epistemologies of the South , pp. 439 - 480Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023