5 Existing Non-Formal Legal Systems

The contemporary map (Unit 2's history's present tense):1. The surviving-and-revived institutions: the guthi (the Newar trusts' continuing governance — the Guthi Corporation's-and-the guthi-law's regime; the 2019 guthi-bill controversy as the system's political salience); the community mediation (the ward-and-centre practice — the Mediation Act's institutionalized face; the NGO-mediated family-and-community disputes); the badghar/bhalmansa of the Tharu-and-Tarai villages (the annual elected head's continuing justice role); the mukhiya-traditions of the hills; the rodhi's social role (the cultural rather than legal survival);2. The formal system's accommodation: the local governments' dispute-resolution role (the judicial committees — Article 217: the elected-and-community face of the state's first-instance justice); the ADR-statutes' recognition (the mediation-arbitration stack); the custom's evidentiary-and-gap-filling role in the courts' reasoning;3. The double-edged assessment (the exam's critical close): the non-formal's virtues (access, cost, speed, community-legitimacy, the restorative style) against the risks (the equality-deficits: the caste-and-gender biases; the rights'-blindness; the elite-capture; the constitutional-rights' subordination) — the synthesis: the regulated-and-rights-anchored integration (the formal floor + the informal's reach) as the system's maturation path.