ABSTRACT
The chapter seeks to critically analyze the applicability of the Ubuntu justice and the country’s law. Ubuntu justice is premised upon Mertz’s thinking that says, ‘an action is (just) right in so far as it produces harmony and eliminates discord’. The idea advanced from the onset of the chapter is that justice is a concept which has been present and practiced in the past and continues to be in existence in modern African set-ups. The work further establishes that justice and its associated systems have been a feature of African political, legal and social organization contrary to the thinking of colonial explorers and colonizers who viewed African systems as unjust and order-less. Apart from that, the chapter argues that the traditional justice system has the potential to co-exist alongside modern justice systems. In addition, the traditional justice system has the potential to contribute significantly to human progress and flourishing since it is human-centered and promotes the resolving of misunderstandings through consensus reached by discussions entered into by offender, offended and community at large. In this regard, the traditional system does away with tendencies of exclusion and marginalization that are characteristic of modern and colonial justice systems, hence the need to advocate for the adoption of some of the traditional system’s values of settling misunderstandings.
