This dissertation points out the stark inequalities of segregated criminal justice in nineteenth-century Java and analyses this unequal system in practice, shown by an actor-focused approach... Show moreThis dissertation points out the stark inequalities of segregated criminal justice in nineteenth-century Java and analyses this unequal system in practice, shown by an actor-focused approach and through a framework of legal pluralities. Ravensbergen searched for the conflicts occurring around the green table of the 'pluralistic courts'(landraden and ommegaande rechtbanken) where the non-European population was tried by Javanese and Dutch court members, and Islamic and Chinese legal advisors. The pluralistic courts, the only places in Java where all regional power structures met and actively worked together, were courtrooms of many conflicts. The courts were also in interaction, and conflict, with other state institutions, together all furthering the project of colonial state formation. By taking this approach, Ravensbergen shows how it was not only inequality, but also uncertainty and injustice, that were central to colonial criminal justice imposed on the local population. Show less
This thesis discusses the negotiation of custom in the Landraad, a judicial forum set up by the Dutch East India Company (VOC), in eighteenth-century Sri Lanka. The Landraad had a majority of VOC... Show moreThis thesis discusses the negotiation of custom in the Landraad, a judicial forum set up by the Dutch East India Company (VOC), in eighteenth-century Sri Lanka. The Landraad had a majority of VOC officials and a subordinate minority of local headmen. It was a space in which agency was multifarious. The nuances of everyday practice as studied here reveal both rejection and manipulation by local actors. This in turn informs us of everyday life in early-modern colonialism. A choice of laws came into play, that choice being significant at varying degrees for different areas of the law such as evidence, inheritance, land and marriage law. Based on over a hundred cases brought forward by men and women from the Galle district in southern Sri Lanka, the lived experience of legal pluralism is emphasised. This thesis adds an empirical study and the insights of socio-legal studies of legal pluralism to the existing literature on Roman-Dutch law in Sri Lanka. While there was inevitable conflict, in practice the local normative order was as much a social fact for the early colonial rulers as Roman-Dutch law. Show less
