Reframing “Informal Justice”: Local Legal Practices in the DRC and Their Unexpected Formality

This post draws on the research article: “« Je suis tout ce qu’il y a de plus formel » : analyse par le bas des pratiques de justice locale dans deux provinces de la RDC”, by Moriceau, Wetsh’okonda Koso, de Coster & Kirusha, published in Conjonctures de l’Afrique Centrale 2021.

In development and policy discourse, local justice in sub-Saharan Africa is frequently framed as informal, customary, or alternative. These labels refer to the spontaneity, lack of structure, and -in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)- lack of state recognition. However, field research conducted in Kongo-Central and Kasaï-Central provinces challenges this perception. Using legal pluralism as a theoretical lens, we conducted about 60 semi-structured interviews with State-court judges, customary chiefs and practitioners, community leaders, and justice seekers in 6 diverse municipalities in August and September 2019. We found that local justice mechanisms are far from informal. They are procedurally ordered, deeply rooted in local legitimacy, and often closely tied to the state.

During a consultation, a customary chief responded sharply when his role was described as informal: ‘Me, informal? I am all about formality’. This powerful reaction speaks to a broader reality: what is called informal justice in global policy language may, on the ground, operate with a remarkable level of formality.

Procedural, Legitimate, Recognised

Our fieldwork reveals that dispute resolution led by chiefs involves public hearings, designated councils, rules on admissible evidence, and even appeal procedures. The personnel involved are selected according to criteria including lineage, age, moral standing, and knowledge of local custom. Chiefs do not act alone but convene ad hoc or semi-permanent councils of respected local figures.

These procedures are underpinned by both customary legitimacy and state sanction. Chiefs are invested by administrative authorities at local or national levels, and are expected to maintain social harmony, but the Congolese law does not recognise their authority in the settlement of legal disputes. In practice, they resolve a broad range of disputes—from inheritance and land to minor criminal matters—with outcomes generally accepted by the parties.

More Than Alternative

The term Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR), often used in legal and development circles, seems misapplied here. For many in rural DRC, these mechanisms are not alternatives—they are the primary, accessible, and more often used modes of justice. State courts are often remote, linguistically and procedurally alienating, and prohibitively expensive. According to consistent research data, local customary actors also enjoy greater public trust than state legal institutions. One villager explained: ‘With the chief, you know where your money is going. And you don’t need to speak French’.

Yet despite regional variation, we observed key commonalities: shared rules organising local customary power, same procedural patterns such as a strong emphasis on consensus, and social reconciliation over punitive sanctions. These patterns challenge the perception that customary systems are inherently fragmented or idiosyncratic.

Legal Pluralism in Practice

Although adjudication carried out by chiefs does not have legal recognition, collaborations do exist between local chiefs and judicial actors. These relationships, however, are fragile, inconsistent, and shaped by individual attitudes and local political dynamics. In some areas, judges work with chiefs to verify civil agreements or delineate jurisdictional boundaries. In others, they dismiss the legitimacy of any non-state process outright.

One magistrate stated: ‘If a case arrives at my court and I see it was dealt with by a chief, I disregard it entirely. It has no legal value’. This view, while legally defensible, ignores the fact that many chiefs are appointed by the state and serve functions similar to those of lower-tier judges. Local justice systems continue to be perceived by national judicial and political actors as an inferior form of justice — one that should either eventually disappear or be strictly subordinated to the principles of state law. Such a vision prevents the creation of a framework in which both systems can stand on equal footing, thereby hindering the emergence of a genuine intercultural dialogue of laws, as advocated by Gargarella.

Conclusion: Reframing Local Justice

Our research suggests that informality is not a helpful lens through which to understand local justice in the DRC. These systems are both structured and legitimate. Recognising this formality does not mean idealising the systems, but it does demand a shift in vocabulary and policy approach, as well as in legal and development studies research.

As the legal pluralist Griffiths noted forty years ago, the integration of other forms of justice into the state legal system still occurs on the terms of state law, often resembling an incorporation rather than a genuine valorisation of these non-state forms, reflecting a weak legal pluralism. Recognising the formality and legitimacy of local justice mechanisms in the DRC may provide a new perspective and challenge the initiatives, embedded in justice reforms and foreign aid across various African contexts, that seek to ‘formalise’ local justice through court-like training or supervision mechanisms. In pluralistic settings where legal pluralism is weakly structured, justice reform may not aim at replacement or domestication, but rather at fostering a reciprocal approach and equal dialogue, operationalising a ‘strong’ legal pluralism as Griffiths envisioned.