The award has distinguished the CES researcher’s Master’s thesis entitled “Legal pluralism and access to justice. The role of community justices of conflict resolution in Mozambique”. The thesis, supervised by Boaventura de Sousa Santos, analysed the role of community justices of conflict resolution which apply non-State law and constitute, together with judicial courts, the legal and judicial reality of Mozambique.

This annual award is designed to distinguish Master’s or Doctoral thesis elaborated at national or foreign universities, focused on internal and external issues of Portuguese-Speaking Countries (CPLP) or communities of Portuguese diaspora.

The date for the award cerimony will be announced soon.

 
About the thesis

Legal pluralism, which, in a simplified way, can be defined as the presence of multiple legal orders within the same social scope, tends to exist in all societies, although with very different social and political shapes and meanings. In Mozambique, this reality is very rich and complex, with various community justices of conflict resolution applying non-State law and constituting, together with judicial courts, the legal and judicial reality of Mozambique The starting point for this thesis is legal pluralism and access to justice, questioning if those justices contribute to the democratization of access to justice or, on the contrary, to the distribution of an inferior justice.

This work, supervised by Boaventura de Sousa Santos, was developed within the context of a wider research project on the Revision of the Judicial Organization of Mozambique, conducted in partnership by Centre for Social Studies of University of Coimbra (CES) and the Legal and Judicial Training Centre of Mozambique (CFJJ). Within this project, researchers were able to develop field work, based, mostly, on interviews to key actors, direct observation of the studied justices and, whenever possible, documental analysis. Besides benefiting from the structure of this research, the second stage of the thesis elaboration process relied on the financial support from Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, through a Master's grant.

After the analysis of legal pluralism concept, and the theoretical approach to some essential debates involving African legal pluralism and access to justice, the thesis goes through Mozambique history, from the colonial period to nowadays, aiming to show how the State, in different moments and under different external and internal pressures, integrated or excluded community justices, as well as how those justices resisted to State impositions and how, sometimes, used them to strengthen their legitimacy. Three study cases are presented: Two conducted in Maputo, Mozambique’s capital city, and a third one in Macossa, a district in the country interior.

Among the several justices found, community courts, traditional authorities, neighbourhoods’ secretaries/stimulating groups, Traditional Doctors’ Association and NGOs are emphasized. Reality differs significantly according to geographical area, being difficult to get a one-dimensional answer to the initial question. The intention of this work is not to promote a idealized image of community justices of conflict resolution, but it acknowledges that they still have a preponderant role in the resolution of litigations and, with the selective use by the citizens, they do promote, in many cases, the access o justice. Conclui-se que, tal como os tribunais judiciais não são excluídos do debate sobre o acesso ao direito e justiça pelos problemas e as dificuldades que enfrentam, outras formas de resolução de conflitos, ainda que imperfeitas, devem ser parte relevante no mesmo, podendo mostrar-se apropriadas não apenas nos seus contextos culturais específicos, mas igualmente como referência à criação de modelos mais democráticos de justiça em todo o mundo.

 
About the researcher

Sara Araújo is a researcher at Centre for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra, where she also is a doctoral student of the programme “Law, Justice, and Citizenship in the Twenty First Century”, under which she is conducting a comparative study between Portugal and Mozambique on the access to justice and community justices of conflict resolution. She was a member of the Permanent Observatory for Portuguese Justice and participated in a cooperation project between CES and Legal and Judicial Training Centre (CFJJ) of Mozambique on the Revision of the Judicial Organization of Mozambique. Since 2008, she is an associate member of Centre for African Studies of Eduardo Mondlane University. She concluded her master degree with the dissertation “Legal Pluralism and access to justice. The role of community justices in Mozambique”.