Decentralised authorities, decentralised power and who gets access to justice in Sierra Leone

This paper examines the interface between formal and informal justice in Sierra Leone and the failure of externally driven legal reforms to get down to the community level. In the countryside chiefs still control access to justice and exercise justice in accordance with existing social and power structures with them at the top. This has implications for those seeking justice and raises uncomfortable questions about access to justice, the use of informal providers and issues of power in the countryside.