The Barangay justice system has jurisdiction over civil cases between private persons (cases involving firms or public officials are excluded); it can also address, through civil remedies, crimes punishable by less than a year. When a complaint is filed the Barangay chief—an elected official equivalent to the UP chairperson—first attempts mediation or arbitration depending on the preference of the parties. If these initial efforts do not succeed, the chief constitutes a ―conciliation panel‖ of three persons from the Bangaray Justice Committee; the committee is made of up 10 to 20 persons selected every three years by the village chief. The conciliation panel also attempts mediation; if this too fails the village chief provides a ―certificate to file action‖ which allows parties to lodge a case in formal court.

Surveys suggest that the Barangay system is highly regarded by past users and by the general population. Between 1999 and 2005, the Barangay system successfully mediated 75 to 85 percent of the cases it received. Problems identified with the system include the politicization of decisions, which is thought to stem in part from the concentration of power in the hands of the village chief; unfairness in relation to gender issues, which may be due in part to the fact that very few women are chosen as justice committee members; and a lack of training and standardization in arbitration and mediation technique (Mercado 2008).

The post-independence government in Tanzania sought to develop a consistent national system to unify and render more uniform the local, tribal legal institutions that had been recognized under the British colonial strategy of indirect rule. In 1969 the government established arbitration tribunals, later renamed ward tribunals, which are panels of up to five lay mediators who seek voluntary resolution of local disputes. Like the Bangladesh village courts, these tribunals are not supervised by the judiciary but are linked to it by a right to appeal from the tribunals into the formal courts. The tribunals are managed by district-level government administrators. A 2003 study of ward tribunals in the Babati District in North-central Tanzania found that, though they are considered to have some bias towards wealthier parties, and though the arbitrators are primarily male elders, community members ranked the tribunals as more ―just and fair‖ than any other dispute resolution mechanism, including the formal courts, village and religious elders, and party organs (Lawi 2003). A study of the Kilimanarjo region of Tanzania, however, found that many communities favored unrecognized community-based dispute resolution to the state-administered ward tribunals (Moore 1992).

What leads some versions of such intermediate structures, like the lay justices of the peace in Peru and the ward tribunals in Babati District, to earn the trust of the people they serve while other versions, like the nyaya panchayats and perhaps the ward tribunals in Kilimanjaro fail to do so? We will explore the implications of international experience further as we address specific possibilities and challenges posed by the Bangladesh village courts. We divide the discussion into the broad categories of fairness and effectiveness.

_Fairness_

- **What substantive law should the village courts apply?** The Village Courts Act exempts village courts from the Evidence Act, the Criminal Procedure Code, and the Civil Procedure Code, but is silent on the question of what substantive law the village

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