: Customary Norms vis-à-vis Human Rights: A Critical Analysis on the Compatibility or otherwise of a Customary Dispute Resolution Mechanism the so Called Gumma (Blood Money

Abstract

Gumma is a customary dispute resolution mechanism which practiced mainly by Oromo and Somali people as a resort to remedy injustice and to restore peace between the conflicting parties. The role this customary resolution mechanism in ensuring restorative justice and preventing avenges is invaluable. This significance of such a dispute resolution mechanism is reliable only when it is used as a complimentary to the formal justice system. Contrary to this, in most of the case, the mechanism is used as a substitution to the formal justice system. Nevertheless, the mechanism could only supplement the formal justice system than replacing it. Applying Gumma as a substitution to the formal justice system could have some detrimental effects upon the defendant, in tolerating due process of law, and victim’s family, in compromising the right to access to justice. This study is a doctrinal legal research which, by reviewing relevant legal and scholarly literatures, assessed the consistency or otherwise of Gumma with basic human rights of the defendant and victim’s family. Besides, the study also appraised the factors which hinder to avail the positive aspects of Gumma. In doing so, the study revealed that Gumma, when applied as a substitute to the formal justice system, in most of the case violates the right to fair trial of the defendant and the right to adequate justice of the victim’s family. And the problem is mainly attributable on the formal justice machineries that let go cases out of their hand by which Gumma is used as a substitution to the formal justice system