3 History and Influence of the Non-Formal Legal System in Nepal

The non-formal (customary-and-community) law: the people's own justice — older than the state's law and surviving it: 1. The institutions' map: the guthi (the Newar socio-religious trusts: the land's-and-rituals' self-governance — the property-and-community disputes' internal resolution); the kachahari (the village's open assembly adjudication — the community court's tradition); the badghar/ bhalmansa (the Tharu-and-Tarai villages' headmen: the elected village-chief's justice); the mukhiya (the hill villages' head; the thari-and-jimwal layers of the Khas settlements); the rodhi (the Gurung youth-institutions' social discipline); the bhardar-and-panchayat councils' historical forms; the mukhiya-and-naya systems of the trans-Himalayan communities; 2. The historical influence: the state's law's partner-and-rival — the Ain-era's recognition (the custom's codification-and-accommodation: the thiti chapters; the birta-and-jagir's local justice); the land's everyday governance by the community long before the state's reach (the state's thin presence: the village's self-rule's centuries); 3. The modern era's recognition-and-erosion: the 2019-and-2047 constitutions' local-justice gestures; the community-mediation movement's revival (the mediation centres — Procedural Law-I's Unit 4, this semester); the guthi's statutory special regime (the Guthi Corporation's era- and-controversy); the customary fishing-and-forest rights' modern questions; the non-formal systems' contemporary place (Unit 3.5's survey): the access-and-cost arguments for; the equality-and-rights risks (the caste-and-gender biases of the custom) — the double-edged assessment.