ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the nature of impact the interaction between the different layers of legality has on dispute processing within the layers where non-state actors and mechanisms are predominant. The very creation of several layers of legality that a dispute is expected to pass through before reaching the arena where state actors are active was one of the ways in which the community tackled and countered the threat posed to postulational values of the community laws. One of the efforts that the key actors, acting as gatekeepers in every layer of legality made, was to limit the processing of a dispute to the layer of legality they were active in or to those before them. The awareness of state law has witnessed a prominent increase through mediums such as the television, newspapers and hearsay experiences of other community members. The state legal system has always been simultaneously a mode of control and a place of resistance.
