THE SNAKE BONE CASE - LAW CUSTOM, AND JUSTICE IN A PAPUA-NEW-GUINEA VILLAGE COURT

One of the outcomes of judgmental administrative attitudes toward indi genous praxis in colonial Papua New Guinea was a convention that an an tagonistic relationship existed between European law and 'native custo m'. By the end of the colonial period the defence of 'custom' had beco me part of an anti-colonial polemic among indigenous intellectuals and politicians. The Village Court system was established in this rhetori cal climate. Its mission, reinforced in legislation, included the favo uring of 'custom' in the dispensation of justice. Subsequent academic and journalistic commentaries on the development of the Village Court system have perpetuated a binary notion of the relationship between la w and custom, whether portraying it as antagonistic or articulatory. T his article focuses on a single case from a Port Moresby village court , involving an accusation of attempted sorcery. The case raises questi ons not only about the validity of the discursive law/custom dichotomy but about the notion of custom itself in the context of the dispensat ion of justice in contemporary Papua New Guinea. It is suggested that in village court praxis, the notion of custom serves the exploitation of village court officers as cheap labour in the justice system.