Administration of Justice in Bajaur: A Comparison of Traditional Jirga and Formal Court System

The erstwhile Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) was merged into the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa through the 25th Constitutional amendment. Along with various institutional changes, the justice system has also undergone significant changes after the merger in 2018. This research article presents a comparison of the administration of justice before and after the merger of FATA and examines its impacts on justice system in District Bajaur. The study is qualitative in nature, employing comparative and exploratory designs. Semi-structured interview guide and purposive sampling technique have been used for data collection. The collected data has been analyzed and interpreted thematically in the form of separated themes. In light of the legal empowerment theory of Domingo and O’Neil (2014), the findings reveal that majority of people in District Bajaur prefer and trust old Jirga system over the new. However, the analysis does not romanticize the Jirga, even though, widely preferred there are some demerits in Jirga system such as unfair treatment of women, absence of appeal system, and sometimes arbitrary decisions by powerful elders.