Hostile Witnesses, Judicial Interactions and Out-of-Court Narratives in a North Indian District Court

Daniela Berti (1)

1 CEH - Centre d'Études Himalayennes

This article aims to contrast a common opinion that people in India have a strong orientation to court compared to other forms of negotiation or advising (Galanter 1969, Foster 2007). In spite of the centrality of the court system to Indian public life, the flow of cases arriving at court may simply corresponds to a choice which the parties make in the first place, and which will eventually be abandoned in favour of private forms of compromise. By relying on the ethnography of a court case followed in a District court of Himachal Pradesh this contribution will show how even in serious criminal cases where no private compromise is allowed, it often happens that all the prosecutor witnesses deny before the judge what they are supposed to have previously stated to the police. The analyses of court's interactions and out of court narratives will show how non official forms of conciliation may internally unsettles the rules of evidence followed in criminal proceedings.

Mots clés: trial court; criminal proceedings; judicial system; India

Domaines: Anthropologie sociale et ethnologie

Daniela Berti. Hostile Witnesses, Judicial Interactions and Out-of-Court Narratives in a North Indian District Court. 2009. ⟨halshs-00413747v3⟩