ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses technologies of truth finding and the establishment of evidence in dealing with everyday deviance at the village level in rural Morocco. There is a multitude of institutions and individuals that appear to be tied to the formal legal system and the state to varying degrees. One particular institution – that of the people’s judge, the hakim – takes center stage. The chapter explores to the debate on truth, evidence and intent in legal anthropology. It examines a local arrangement that is widely neglected in the literature: the interaction between, a village council as a rule-setting and fine-fixing institution and, on the other hand, a local judge who represents adjudication in compliance both with the judiciary and with the village order. Village justice and local order in rural Morocco are embedded in a complex web of governmental, administrative, juridical, customary, moral and religious frames of reference.
