Dr Riccardo Cappelletti

If the discourse promoted by public authorities remains a dead letter in the eyes and understanding of litigants, what should be the solution? Should we not then change tack? This is the whole point of the pertinent question formulated by Valentin Yves Mudimbé: what order of discourse for Africa? In the case of the present theme, we would be tempted to ask instead: assuming the existence of a legal narrative specific to Africa, what would be the relevance of deploying or taking into account an original legal narrative in the writing of legal discourse in Africa? And therefore, what could be the contribution to the ideal of thinking of a law subservient to socio-anthropological realities? Based on the above lines, affirming the scientific relevance of such a subject would be a truism.

Concretely, the conclusive results of such a research postulate will mainly benefit only the science of law in general. A greater sensitivity of the latter to the daily concerns of its recipients could only produce positive repercussions in that it would allow it, as a social science, to smoke the peace pipe with them.