Kyrgyz national identity is represented by its history, culture, regionalism, tribalism, ideology, language and ethnicity. A closer look at each of these factors reveals arrays of more complex, and sometimes, questionable and contradictory sub-factors that make it all the more difficult to draw a definitive conclusion to the question of Kyrgyz national identity. Although other features of the Kyrgyz national identity are important to understanding the country, notions of regionalism, tribalism and clanism are bases of some of the serious political and socio-economic problems. In the post-revolution environment, these divisions bode disaster for the country lurching between crisis and turmoil as criminal elements and special interests take advantage of divisions.

Between April 1 and April 10, 2006, a team consisting of Dr. Thomas Barfield, Omar Sharifi and Abdul Ahrar Ramizpoor visited three provinces in northern Afghanistan (Balkh, Kunduz and Takhar) to examine the current state of the Afghan legal system, particularly the relationship between the formal and informal systems.

The formal court system functions in most rural areas, although in mountainous regions of Takhar access was reported to be difficult. About 80% of their caseload is civil, with the bulk of these cases focusing on disputes over inheritance, property and family law (mostly marriage and divorce). About 20% of the cases are criminal in nature but prosecutors noted a sharp decline in serious criminal offenses over the past four years.
The courts and judges are widely disliked and avoided by most residents as a way to resolve disputes. People complain that the courts are too slow, expensive, and corrupt. Judges appointed by the Kabul government are often holdovers from the Taliban era whose knowledge of the law (governmental or sharia) is deficient and who are widely reputed to demand bribes.

The informal system is much more popular because it is cheaper, quicker and more respected than the formal system for civil cases, in part because decisions there reflect a greater respect for equity as opposed to legal nuance. Representatives who decide such cases include village elders and mullahs who are accepted by both sides in a dispute to form a shura, the larger the problem the bigger the group chosen. Compared with thirty years ago, there is a much higher level of trust and closer connections between village elders and the local government

This article investigates conceptions of history as perceived and theoretically embodied in terms such as revitalisation, invention, and continued vitality. These terms have been used extensively in scientific and non-scientific literature for the description and analysis of post-colonial and postsocialist societies. In this paper, it is argued that these terms and the concepts behind them do not explain and elucidate the meaning of history for society and its members, but rather camouflage it. It argues for a pluralistic conception of history and for investigation
of the meaning attached to it rather than its fitting into one of the scientific categories such as revitalisation, invention, and continued vitality. There is not one history, but many different historical accounts.

This paper is for practitioners working on access to justice. It presents a case for UNDP to increase its engagement with informal justice systems so that we can better strengthen access to justice for poor and disadvantaged people.

Justice sector reform is a rapidly expanding area, however informal justice systems still remain largely neglected by UNDP and most multi-lateral and bi-lateral development assistance. This is somewhat surprising as the poor and disadvantaged are infrequent users of the formal justice system and UNDP’s niche lies in ensuring access to justice for those who are poor and disadvantaged.

The transition from socialism to capitalism in Central and Eastern Europe and the Baltics (CEE) and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) has required a fundamental reorientation of legal and judicial institutions. During socialist times they were subordinate to the executive and the Communist Party, and their role in the commercial sphere was oriented almost entirely toward enforcing the governments’ economic plans. The scope for private transactions and private law was narrow. Administrative law and institutions—including state arbitration—represented the most extensive part of the legal infrastructure.

The transition from socialism to capitalism requires a dramatic change in legal and judicial institutions: heightened independence from the executive; new roles and skills for judges, lawyers, and other personnel; and a rapid increase in institutional capacity to handle legal cases efficiently and effectively. This study looks at the experience of the CEE and CIS transition economies in their efforts to reform their legal and judicial institutions to fit the needs of a market economy.

This study was conducted under the USAID Afghanistan Rule of Law Project to assess the current condition and characteristics of the informal justice sector and make preliminary recommendations on improving access to justice and relations between the formal and informal justice systems.

The scope of this study is informal justice, defined as a legitimated and more or less institutionalized set of interactions between individuals and groups over matters such as dispute resolution and enforcement of agreements, which take place outside of the government courts system. These matters are most often resolved on the basis of norms and principles distinct from those legislated by government, and enjoy no entitlement to government recognition or enforcement.

The reconstruction of a legal system in any post-conflict country requires a certain understanding of the local customary laws. In Afghanistan, the need for such understanding is particularly acute because customary laws, de facto, govern the lives of a majority of the population. Pursuant to the Bonn Agreement of December 2001, the existing laws and regulations of Afghanistan remain in effect to the extent that they are not inconsistent with the provisions of the 1964 Afghan Constitution – subject to some limitations – and the international legal obligations, or treaties, to which Afghanistan is a party. The Transitional Government has the power to amend and repeal those laws and regulations. A new Constitution was adopted in January, 2004, but its implementation will be difficult.

A report prepared by the International Commission of Jurists (“The Jurists’ Report,” at www.icj.org) recognizes the dominance of Islamic and customary laws in Afghanistan. The formal legal system is simply not the norm governing the lives of the majority of the population. According to the Jurists’ Report, “the bifurcation of the legal system into an official law and an unofficial law has been a hallmark of Afghan legal history ever since attempts were made to introduce statutory laws.” The Jurists’ Report concludes by stating “with some confidence that past experience would suggest
that any attempt to implement and enforce secular statutory laws which depart from customary and/or Islamic law is liable to be met with protest and civil unrest.

New access to information laws in many countries provide a strong foundation for transparent public institutions, but cannot ensure open government absent active follow up. This was the conclusion of a pilot study monitoring freedom of information carried out by the Open Society Justice Initiative in 2003 with partners in five countries.

In just over a decade, more than 45 countries worldwide have adopted freedom of information laws. This study shows that, even once a law is adopted, effective implementation remains a major challenge. Conducted in Armenia, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Peru and South Africa, the survey marks one of the most comprehensive efforts yet to test the limits of government transparency.

At the beginning of the 1980s, India introduced the Lok Adalat (People's Court) system. It was intended as a vehicle for settling disputes at the grassroots level in a traditional manner. But does Lok Adalat deserve the support it enjoys amongst politicians and judges in India? This study by the London School of Economics examines several different types of Lok Adalats. It concludes that the claim that this forum offers participants speedy, fair, deliberative justice needs serious reconsideration.

India is acclaimed for achieving a flourishing constitutional order. However, there is broad agreement that further reforms are required to enable ordinary people to access justice and invoke the protection of the law. The Lok Adalat was created to improve access to justice and alleviate the institutional burden of millions of petty cases clogging the regular courts. In 2002 Parliament enacted a new set of amendments to the Indian Civil Procedure Code, which allowed ordinary courts to refer cases to Lok Adalats. In most cases the claims are usually for small amounts of money and involve relatively minor issues. The presiding judge of a Lok Adalat is an experienced adjudicator with legal acumen and a documented record of public service.

The majority of land in Ghana is still held under a diversity of customary tenures, embedded in family, community and chiefly institutions; but land disputes may be adjudicated in a variety of institutions: informal arbitration and family tribunals, chiefs' courts, quasi-legal state agencies and the formal state courts. Current debates on how to protect the land rights of the majority of customary land holders revolve around the respective merits of customary and non-state regulation (said to be accessible, flexible and socially embedded), and state systems, which are said to offer more certainty, impartiality and non-discriminatory codes and procedures. In Ghana, however, customary and state legal codes have been integrated for some time, and the state courts, which are frequently used as first instance adjudicators, apply customary rules. Does this mean that in Ghana the merits of customary law can be combined with the certainty and enforceability of state court dispute settlement? Based primarily on survey and interviewee data, the research analyses how litigants in three selected state courts perceived the experience of taking their land cases to court. It was found that, in spite of the problems and delays associated with the state courts, there was a very strong demand for authoritative and enforceable remedies which only the state could provide. It was also found that the justice offered by the state courts was not as alien or inapporpriate as commonly supposed. Particularly in the Magistrates Court, judges were well respected and their procedures seen as sufficiently flexible and user-friendly. Moreover, the extreme reluctance to entertain out-of-court settlements casts doubt on the notion that proposals to move to more use of ADRs (alternative dispute resolution) will be successful if they fail to offer equivalent authority, fairness and enforceabilit