Abstract

This report contends – and substantiates - that in the short-to-medium term better justice outcomes in Mali can only be achieved by stimulating greater mutual recognition of, and synergies between, the country’s customary and state judicial systems as more or less equal components of the country’s ‘justice ecology’. Accepting that the Malian state does not have, will not have and should not aspire to have a monopoly on the provision of justice for the next few decades is a critical starting point for making improvements to how justice is provided in matters that affect Malians in their daily lives. As this will be a contentious endeavour, a gradual approach is needed to identify directions for development that are both acceptable and feasible. A five-step process may provide this:

Acknowledgements

We owe a debt of thanks to the Dutch ‘Nationale Postcode Loterij’ (National Postcode Lottery), which generously sponsored the Sahel Programme of Clingendael’s Conflict Research Unit of which this report represents a part. Without it, the report would not have been written.

We would also like to express our gratitude to Lalla Mariam Haidara of CERCAD (Bamako, Mali) for helping identify appropriate interviewees for this study, for making it possible to meet them and for contextualising some of the interview findings.

Furthermore, we are indebted to Dr Abraham Bengaly and his team at the Observatoire des Droits Humains et de la Paix (ODHP, Bamako, Mali) – Aguissa Ag Mohamed, Abdoulaye Moussa, Yaya Sidibé and Bocar Kalil – who conducted vital research on the ‘state of justice’ in northern Mali that we used for this report. They did this work within a tight time frame and yet with analytical rigour. Visiting the areas of Timbuktu, Gao and Kidal can be risky, so we are grateful that they managed to conduct their business without incident.

As the analysis for this report was carried out in parallel with a more specific analysis of Mali’s penal process, we were able to make use of resources and findings in ways that enhanced both studies. For enabling this, we thank Roelof Haveman (Dutch embassy in Bamako, Mali) and Jan McArthur (International Development of Law Organization).

We have also greatly appreciated the swift and competent advice of Thomas Gilchrist (an independent consultant on human rights and conflict) and Grégory Chauzal (Clingendael) on several occasions as we sought to understand and contextualise particular aspects of international efforts to support justice in Mali.

Finally, we want to acknowledge Malick Coulibaly (former Malian minister of justice), Mamadou Ba (rule of law adviser at the Dutch embassy in Mali), Jan de Vries (Netherlands Helsinki Committee) and Jort Hemmer (Clingendael) for their review of this report. The copy-editing was done with the usual efficiency and quality by Jane Carroll, while Textcetera competently took care of its typesetting. The infographic was designed by Frédérik Ruys of Vizualism. Thank you.

The report’s contents as well as any errors naturally remain the responsibility of the authors