18511. Traditional Authority, Local
Government & Justice
ChERR y lEonaRdi & musa abdul Jalil
In a small town in southern Sudan, a young man is sitting in the shade
on the root of a mango tree. He has just emerged from a squat brick
building in which he has shouted and elbowed his way to the attention
of two clerks, who demand over a hundred US dollars from him, in return
for a scrap of paper with a rubber stamp on it. The young man, John,
now waits patiently, perhaps returning daily before eventually his name
or number is called, and then he enters a small square office adjacent to
the chaos of the clerks’ office.
Here, before the high desk of the county judge, he faces the relatives of
Paul. Five years ago a female cousin of John’s gave birth to Paul’s child,
but Paul has not yet given any kind of marriage payment or bridewealth
to her family. John is around 30 years old and as yet unmarried; the
cattle his cousin should have earned the family through her marriage are
vital for John’s own marriage. His family had tried to settle the problem
privately and peacefully with Paul and his relatives, but the dispute had
escalated. To avoid potentially deadly fighting, John’s uncles had taken
the case to a series of chiefs’ courts and town courts. None had been able
to enforce the payment of the customary minimum of 36 cattle from Paul
and his father, a powerful military officer, and so John had decided to
approach the county judge. This was a costly step to take, but John was
convinced that the dollars he was investing would bring access to the
power of the police to enforce a favourable decision from the judge.
For John, the only distinction between the court to which he is now
appealing and the courts that had previously heard his case lie in its
The Sudan Handbook, edited by John Ryle, Justin Willis, Suliman Baldo and Jok Madut Jok. © 2011 Rift Valley Institute and contributors
(www.riftvalley.net).