By James Innocent Ali
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) conducted a three-day workshop on documentation of customary laws of various communities in the Southern counties of Central Equatoria State which comprises Lainya, Morobo, Kajo-Keji and Yei.
The workshop targeted more than 80 participants. In collaboration with IOM was the ministry of local government, law enforcement agencies and the traditional authorities.
Advocate Deng Biong, one of the IOM consultants said that during a validation workshop in Yei in February, they conducted the customary law review involving 150 participants but currently only more than eighty participants are for this workshop.
“If you are a practitioner in the legal sector, you get that more than 80 percent of cases in South Sudan are handled through application of the customary law and if this customary laws are not ascertained and not documented, there will really be a problem because now you get some people miss applying and claiming things accustomed therefore that’s why they need to ascertain and it needs to be documented such that the future generation can come and realize that house issues are handled according to customs” Deng said.
“There should be uniformity in handling cases as they were in November from some people when they came for assessment that some chiefs make mistakes in handling the same issue. If it is judged by two judges, the cases have a different judgment that’s why the ascertainment and documentation is very important to the judges to understand the different customary laws of any culture,” he pointed.
The IOM consultant gave his view in an exclusive interview in Yei River County of Central Equatorial State.