Legal Pluralism and Indian Democracy

Legal Pluralism and Indian Democracy
Author: Melvil Pereira
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 294
Release: 2017-07-28
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1351403664

This book offers a multifaceted look at Northeast India and the customs and traditions that underpin its legal framework. The book: charts the transition of traditions from colonial rule to present day, through constitutionalism and the consolidation of autonomous identities, as well as outlines contemporary debates in an increasingly modernising region; explores the theoretical context of legal pluralism and its implications, compares the personal legal systems with that of the mainland, and discusses customary law’s continuing popularity (both pragmatic and ideological) and common law; brings together case studies from across the eight states and focuses on the way individual systems and procedures manifest among various tribes and communities in the voices of tribal and non-tribal scholars; and highlights the resilience and relevance of alternative systems of redressal, including conflict resolution and women’s rights. Part of the prestigious ‘Transition in Northeastern India’ series, this book presents an interesting blend of theory and practice, key case studies and examples to study legal pluralism in multicultural contexts. It will be of great interest to students of law and social sciences, anthropology, political science, peace and conflict studies, besides administrators, judicial officers and lawyers in Northeast India, legal scholars and students of tribal law, and members of customary law courts of various tribal communities in Northeast India.

Legal Pluralism

Legal Pluralism
Author: M. B. Hooker
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 634
Release: 1975
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN:

This study describes the plural systems of those states retaining an indigenous law which have had imposed, or have adopted into themselves, Western laws- such as those inherited from colonial empires or adopted voluntarily in, for example, Turkey, Thailand, and Ethiopia. Attention is also given to the revolutionary change of law in the U.S.S.R and China. Many issues of practical importance are involved in pluralism, includind those of modernization and development of law for economic and development of law for economic and social purposes, as well as conflicts of law and legal theory.

Legal Pluralism in Ethiopia

Legal Pluralism in Ethiopia
Author: Susanne Epple
Publisher: transcript Verlag
Total Pages: 415
Release: 2020-07-31
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3839450217

Being a home to more than 80 ethnic groups, Ethiopia has to balance normative diversity with efforts to implement state law across its territory. This volume explores the co-existence of state, customary, and religious legal forums from the perspective of legal practitioners and local justice seekers. It shows how the various stakeholders' use of negotiation, and their strategic application of law can lead to unwanted confusion, but also to sustainable conflict resolution, innovative new procedures and hybrid norms. The book thus generates important knowledge on the conditions necessary for stimulating a cooperative co-existence of different legal systems.

The Oxford Handbook of Global Legal Pluralism

The Oxford Handbook of Global Legal Pluralism
Author: Paul Schiff Berman
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 1133
Release: 2020-09-24
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0197516742

"Abstract Global legal pluralism has become one of the leading analytical frameworks for understanding and conceptualizing law in the twenty-first century"--

Nation and Family

Nation and Family
Author: Narendra Subramanian
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Total Pages: 398
Release: 2014-04-09
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0804790906

The distinct personal laws that govern the major religious groups are a major aspect of Indian multiculturalism and secularism, and support specific gendered rights in family life. Nation and Family is the most comprehensive study to date of the public discourses, processes of social mobilization, legislation and case law that formed India's three major personal law systems, which govern Hindus, Muslims, and Christians. It for the first time systematically compares Indian experiences to those in a wide range of other countries that inherited personal laws specific to religious group, sect, or ethnic group. The book shows why India's postcolonial policy-makers changed the personal laws they inherited less than the rulers of Turkey and Tunisia, but far more than those of Algeria, Syria and Lebanon, and increased women's rights for the most part, contrary to the trend in Pakistan, Iran, Sudan and Nigeria since the 1970s. Subramanian demonstrates that discourses of community and features of state-society relations shape the course of personal law. Ruling elites' discourses about the nation, its cultural groups and its traditions interact with the state-society relations that regimes inherit and the projects of regimes to change their relations with society. These interactions influence the pattern of multiculturalism, the place of religion in public policy and public life, and the forms of regulation of family life. The book shows how the greater engagement of political elites with initiatives among the Hindu majority and the predominant place they gave Hindu motifs in discourses about the nation shaped Indian multiculturalism and secularism, contrary to current understandings. In exploring the significant role of communitarian discourses in shaping state-society relations and public policy, it takes "state-in-society" approaches to comparative politics, political sociology, and legal studies in new directions.

Global Legal Pluralism

Global Legal Pluralism
Author: Paul Schiff Berman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 357
Release: 2012-02-27
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1107376912

We live in a world of legal pluralism, where a single act or actor is potentially regulated by multiple legal or quasi-legal regimes imposed by state, substate, transnational, supranational and nonstate communities. Navigating these spheres of complex overlapping legal authority is confusing and we cannot expect territorial borders to solve all these problems. At the same time, those hoping to create one universal set of legal rules are also likely to be disappointed by the sheer variety of human communities and interests. Instead, we need an alternative jurisprudence, one that seeks to create or preserve spaces for productive interaction among multiple, overlapping legal systems by developing procedural mechanisms, institutions and practices that aim to manage, without eliminating, the legal pluralism we see around us. Global Legal Pluralism provides a broad synthesis across a variety of legal doctrines and academic disciplines and offers a novel conceptualization of law and globalization.

Indigeneity and Legal Pluralism in India

Indigeneity and Legal Pluralism in India
Author: Pooja Parmar
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 261
Release: 2015-07-20
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1316407322

As calls for reparations to indigenous peoples grow on every continent, issues around resource extraction and dispossession raise complex legal questions. What do these disputes mean to those affected? How do the narratives of indigenous people, legal professionals, and the media intersect? In this richly layered and nuanced account, Pooja Parmar focuses on indigeneity in the widely publicized controversy over a Coca-Cola bottling facility in Kerala, India. Juxtaposing popular, legal, and Adivasi narratives, Parmar examines how meanings are gained and lost through translation of complex claims into the languages of social movements and formal legal systems. Included are perspectives of the diverse range of actors involved, based on interviews with members of Adivasi communities, social activists, bureaucrats, politicians, lawyers, and judges. Presented in clear, accessible prose, Parmar's account of translation enriches debates in the fields of legal pluralism, indigeneity, and development.

Legal Pluralism and Governance in South Asia and Diasporas

Legal Pluralism and Governance in South Asia and Diasporas
Author: Livia Holden
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 181
Release: 2016-04-14
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1317607295

Legal Pluralism and Governance in South Asia and the Diasporas contributes to the already heated debate about legal pluralism and the ontology of law by shifting the attention toward the relationship between what is treated as law and its impact on governance at the fora of dispute resolution. This book addresses sensitive issues such as gender rights and alternative dispute resolution in India, Hindu and Muslim personal laws in South Asia and in Europe, cross-border white violence, the change to Islamic legal traditions under Western domination, women’s inheritance in Pakistan and in the disputed territory of Gilgit Baltistan, indigenous rights and resistance at the India-Bangladesh border, and customary laws of nomadic groups in India. The authors deploy a variety of views that point at the pros and cons of legal pluralism and also integrates its opponents. They show how constructions of identity, religion, and power have historically informed the conceptualisation of secularism which may be an ideal, sometimes able to provide for perceptions of accountable governance, but also generating dividing worldviews. This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of Legal Pluralism and Official Law.

Comparative Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Omnibus Legislation

Comparative Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Omnibus Legislation
Author: Ittai Bar-Siman-Tov
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 333
Release: 2021-05-27
Genre: Law
ISBN: 3030727483

This book is the first in the world to provide a cross-national, comparative exploration of omnibus legislation. It contributes to the global debate over omnibus legislation and offers comprehensive, thorough and multifaceted coverage that concerns the fields of legislation and legisprudence, comparative law, political science, public policy and economics. Beyond its relevance for these fields, the book will support practitioners in parliaments, governments and courts, thereby impacting the actual use of omnibus legislation. A new, major and controversial reform is enacted in the middle of the night. It is buried in a massive omnibus bill hundreds of pages in length, which is rammed through the legislative process at breakneck speed. The legislators receive the final version of the bill in the very last minute, and protest that they’ve had no opportunity to read it in detail and know what they’re voting upon. The majority party’s legislative leaders, however, are unimpressed, and the law is eventually passed on the basis of strict party discipline. Though it may sound far-fetched, this scenario is all too familiar in many legislatures around the world. The legislative practice of combining numerous unrelated measures in one long bill, which is often passed via a highly expedited process, has become a matter of intense debate and criticism in many countries.

The Constitution of India

The Constitution of India
Author: Arun K Thiruvengadam
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 291
Release: 2017-12-28
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1849468702

This book provides an overview of the content and functioning of the Indian Constitution, with an emphasis on the broader socio-political context. It focuses on the overarching principles and the main institutions of constitutional governance that the world's longest written constitution inaugurated in 1950. The nine chapters of the book deal with specific aspects of the Indian constitutional tradition as it has evolved across seven decades of India's existence as an independent nation. Beginning with the pre-history of the Constitution and its making, the book moves onto an examination of the structural features and actual operation of the Constitution's principal governance institutions. These include the executive and the parliament, the institutions of federalism and local government, and the judiciary. An unusual feature of Indian constitutionalism that is highlighted here is the role played by technocratic institutions such as the Election Commission, the Comptroller and Auditor General, and a set of new regulatory institutions, most of which were created during the 1990s. A considerable portion of the book evaluates issues relating to constitutional rights, directive principles and the constitutional regulation of multiple forms of identity in India. The important issue of constitutional change in India is approached from an atypical perspective. The book employs a narrative form to describe the twists, turns and challenges confronted across nearly seven decades of the working of the constitutional order. It departs from conventional Indian constitutional scholarship in placing less emphasis on constitutional doctrine (as evolved in judicial decisions delivered by the High Courts and the Supreme Court). Instead, the book turns the spotlight on the political bargains and extra-legal developments that have influenced constitutional evolution. Written in accessible prose that avoids undue legal jargon, the book aims at a general audience that is interested in understanding the complex yet fascinating challenges posed by constitutionalism in India. Its unconventional approach to some classic issues will stimulate the more seasoned student of constitutional law and politics.