Legal pluralism
Encyclopedia
Legal pluralism is the existence of multiple legal systems within one geographic area. Plural legal systems are particularly prevalent in former colonies, where the law of a former colonial authority may exist alongside more traditional legal systems. When these systems developed, the idea was that certain issues (e.g., commercial transactions
Commercial law
Commercial law is the body of law that governs business and commercial transactions...

) would be covered by colonial law, while other issues (e.g., family and marriage
Family law
Family law is an area of the law that deals with family-related issues and domestic relations including:*the nature of marriage, civil unions, and domestic partnerships;...

) would be covered by traditional law. Over time, these distinctions tended to break down and individuals would choose to bring their legal claims under the system that they thought would offer them the best advantage.

Legal pluralism also occurs when different laws govern different groups within a country. For example, in India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

 and Tanzania
Tanzania
The United Republic of Tanzania is a country in East Africa bordered by Kenya and Uganda to the north, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the west, and Zambia, Malawi, and Mozambique to the south. The country's eastern borders lie on the Indian Ocean.Tanzania is a state...

, there are special Islamic courts that address concerns in Muslim communities by following Islamic law
Sharia
Sharia law, is the moral code and religious law of Islam. Sharia is derived from two primary sources of Islamic law: the precepts set forth in the Quran, and the example set by the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Sunnah. Fiqh jurisprudence interprets and extends the application of sharia to...

 principles. Secular courts deal with the issues of other communities.

It is important to note that modern Western legal systems can also be pluralistic. It is, thus, misleading to discuss legal pluralism only in relation to non-Western legal systems. For a discussion on the internal and external plurality of legal systems see the section on the sociology of law
Sociology of law
The sociology of law is often described as a sub-discipline of sociology or an interdisciplinary approach within legal studies...

.

Sources of Islamic law include the Koran, Sunnah
Sunnah
The word literally means a clear, well trodden, busy and plain surfaced road. In the discussion of the sources of religion, Sunnah denotes the practice of Prophet Muhammad that he taught and practically instituted as a teacher of the sharī‘ah and the best exemplar...

, and Ijma
Ijma
Ijmāʿ is an Arabic term referring to the consensus of the Muslim community. Various schools of thought within Islamic jurisprudence may define this consensus as that of the first generation of Muslims only; the consensus of the first three generations of Muslims; the consensus of the jurists...

, whereas most modern Western nation-states take the basis of their legal system from the Christian superpowers of old (i.e. Britain, France, etc.). This is also why moral laws
Natural law
Natural law, or the law of nature , is any system of law which is purportedly determined by nature, and thus universal. Classically, natural law refers to the use of reason to analyze human nature and deduce binding rules of moral behavior. Natural law is contrasted with the positive law Natural...

 found in the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...

 have actually been made full-fledged laws, with the initial grundnorm set far back in legal history
Legal history
Legal history or the history of law is the study of how law has evolved and why it changed. Legal history is closely connected to the development of civilizations and is set in the wider context of social history...

, hence fulfilling the priority of both the positivists and the naturalists.

Legal pluralism also exists to an extent in societies where the legal systems of the indigenous population have been given some recognition. In Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

, for example, the Mabo decision
Mabo v Queensland
Mabo v Queensland was a landmark High Court of Australia decision recognising native title in Australia for the first time...

 gave recognition to native title and thus elements of traditional Aboriginal law. Elements of traditional Aboriginal
Indigenous Australians
Indigenous Australians are the original inhabitants of the Australian continent and nearby islands. The Aboriginal Indigenous Australians migrated from the Indian continent around 75,000 to 100,000 years ago....

 criminal law
Criminal law
Criminal law, is the body of law that relates to crime. It might be defined as the body of rules that defines conduct that is not allowed because it is held to threaten, harm or endanger the safety and welfare of people, and that sets out the punishment to be imposed on people who do not obey...

 have also been recognised, especially in sentencing. This has, in effect, set up two parallel sentencing systems. Another example is the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...

 where the customary ways in of indigenous peoples in the Cordilleras are recognized by the Philippine government; and, in Kalinga
Kalinga
Kalinga is a landlocked province of the Philippines in the Cordillera Administrative Region in Luzon. Its capital is Tabuk and borders Mountain Province to the south, Abra to the west, Isabela to the east, Cagayan to the northeast, and Apayao to the north...

, Bodong
Bodong
Bodong refers to the peace pact or peace council used in the province of Kalinga in the northern part of the Philippines. These peace rites are usually accompanied by Kalinga songs such as the ading, wasani and the dandanag...

 is the means used by the people to settle disputes: it had been very effective for them, and is still widely practiced.

There is some concern that traditional legal systems and Muslim legal systems fail to promote women's rights
Women's rights
Women's rights are entitlements and freedoms claimed for women and girls of all ages in many societies.In some places these rights are institutionalized or supported by law, local custom, and behaviour, whereas in others they may be ignored or suppressed...

. As a consequence, members of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) have called for a unification of legal systems within countries.

See the entry on sociology of law
Sociology of law
The sociology of law is often described as a sub-discipline of sociology or an interdisciplinary approach within legal studies...

for other definitions of, and approaches to, legal pluralism.

External links

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