Where parties come from different areas and have different customary laws the position would not be so straightforward. There is currently no guidance as to how the applicable customary law would be distilled in such cases or even whether it should be applied at all. Questions such as this need to be addressed by parliament, pursuant to the mandate contained in s75 of the Constitution. Section 3 provides that Local Courts shall be constituted in accordance with the law or customs of Islanders of the area in which the court has jurisdiction. They have jurisdiction over disputes between Solomon Islanders who are within the geographical area covered by the court, to the extent set out in their warrant.
Criminal jurisdiction is limited to minor offences.
Also, the defendant must be ordinarily resident within the jurisdiction or the cause of action must have arisen there. The Local Court also has exclusive jurisdiction in customary land cases, subject to the requirement that disputes must first be considered by the local chiefs. As noted by Palmer J, the Local Court is much better placed than the Magistrate's Court to deal with customary claims. It is constituted by three Justices who come from the same Province and sometimes the same area as the disputants. They are therefore familiar with all customs in the area.