ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on one salient aspect of the Romani legal system, the institution of the Kris, the core element of arbitration, adjudication and lawmaking in Roma communities: the readers expect that the presumed aspects of self-determination immanent in the Roma legal order can be grasped most eloquently at that level. Due to the transborder and the trans- or rather inter-group character of the phenomenon within the global Roman community divided by multiple identity cleavages, the concrete embodiments of the Roma legal system can be viewed as well as instances of network governance: horizontal articulations of inter-dependent, operationally autonomous actors, interacting within self-regulating imaginary frameworks with strong cognitive, normative and adjudicative functions. The overall picture which resulted from these investigations confirms the presence of practices associated with the autonomous Romani legal system in various parts of Romania, in forms largely compatible with the summary provided regarding the functional, structural and procedural particularities of the Kris.
