Chapter One Performing Litigation at the Queen Motherâs Court
in Access to JusticeSearch for other papers by Beverly J. Stoeltje in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Sofortzugang erwerben (PDF-Download und unbegrenzter Online-Zugang):
Sofortzugang erwerben (PDF-Download und unbegrenzter Online-Zugang):
Taking the Queen Motherâs court in Kumasi, Ghana as an example of a powerful non-state judicial authority with an array of clerks, counselors and linguists, this article explores the power of the key administrative actors controlling the litigation process, namely, the okyeame â spokeswoman or spokesman for the Queen Mother, the final judge. Their roles are set in a complex gender identity in a dual gender court system (Queen Motherâs and Kingâs courts) in the Asante society, where politics rests on kinship and where each person has a complicated identity, but where selection of court personnel is based on objective qualifications of eloquence, character, knowledge of customary law, and matrilineal relationship. It is shown how the duality and complexity set into motion a checks and balances system in the exercise of legal authority. Analysis of actual court hearings illustrate how the elaborate separation of functions of all actors, including the public audience, contributes to the formation of customary law as an interplay of fact-finding, arbitration, consent, and customary rules as variously interpreted by the several actors.