Laws in Competition

Abstract

In analysing the current legal pluralism in Jamaica one cannot escape the need to take into account the historical circumstances of its emergence. It is against this historical background that I shall attempt an interpretation of the endeavour of Maroon communities to maintain local political autonomy in the face of the claim to exclusive sovereignty by the Jamaican state. There are tensions between the traditional Maroon authorities and the official legal and political institutions of the state in the field of law, concerning contested authority as legitimate domination. 1 They appear as struggles over jurisdiction, or more precisely the right to jurisdiction. But it would be inaccurate to present them as mere institutional conflict over political sovereignty. Social actors on both sides interact on different levels of power relations in manifold and complex ways that reflect divisions of power and status within the post-colonial setting. This seems to be true of the internal relations within Maroon societies as much as it is of their interactions with state institutions. In this paper I sketch some of the more prominent features of the actual situation of political and legal pluralism in Jamaica and the historically shaped position of the traditional (Maroon) authorities in that context. Whereas this Jamaican context may appear quite unique, discussion at the Ghana Conference where this paper and the others in this volume were first delivered showed striking similarities to various contexts in Surinam and West Africa. Again, this can be attributed to historical links.