Annex 1
Methodology

The analysis and observations in this report are based on a methodology that combined desk research with in-country expert interviews and external research that the authors commissioned. The purpose and use of each of these methods is briefly described below.

(1) Desk research was carried out between mid-January and mid-June 2015 and covered both French and English academic literature, think tank reports, policy documents and programme evaluations. Its purpose was to take stock of existing work pertaining to the state of justice in Mali. The desk research also highlighted major gaps in existing research in the sense that there seems to be a paucity of works seeking to understand in greater detail Mali’s political economy, drivers of corruption and its variegated customary justice mechanisms.

(2) In-country expert interviews were carried out between 24 March and 3 April 2015 in Bamako and Mopti by the authors. These interviews served to fill part of the gaps discussed above and to test hypotheses developed during the desk research phase. The 24 extended interviews included 7 interviews with civil society representatives and/or journalists, 8 interviews with representatives of the state justice system, 4 interviews with customary justice providers, 3 interviews with members of the international community and 2 interviews with ‘politicians’. In addition, one of the researchers had the opportunity to participate in a two-day workshop in which over 30 Malian stakeholders discussed how the country’s state-run penal process can be improved.

(3) Commissioned research on the state of justice in northern Mali that was carried out by the Observatoire des Droits Humains et de la Paix (ODHP). It focused on the nature of justice provision in the north of Mali before, during and after the 2012 crisis, and on what initiatives might be considered to improve access and quality of justice in the north. To this end, a team of three Malian researchers conducted 61 interviews in April 2015 with local administrators, customary (justice) leaders, members of the state judiciary, members of civil society and ordinary citizens from (or based in) Gao (30), Timbuktu (19) and Kidal (12), using a qualitative, semi-structured interview protocol. Their work was guided by Dr Bengaly and fed into this report. It is cited as an unpublished work in the references.