This book, which is about Samoa, law and custom is useful to read in the context of three controversial Bills that were tabled in in Samoa’s Parliament in February 2020. They are The Constitutional Amendment Bill 2020, The Land and Titles Bill 2020 and The Judicature Bill 2020. They were prepared for by the Samoa Law Reform Commission under the leadership of the author of this book (based on her PhD thesis) and reflect many of the opinions expressed in it. The Bills address a claim that the constitution of Samoa is inadequate because it provides for individual rights but not for Samoan communal rights. The three Bills were prepared to remedy this defect, 57 years after Samoa became an independent state, by removing the Land and Titles from under the protective umbrella of the constitution and setting it up as an separate entity with new processes aimed to give Samoan customary law equal status to the provisions of law in the Constitution of Samoa.
The title of the book is somewhat misleading because Samoa is not a plural society. That term refers to countries with several different cultures, like Fiji, for example, which has a multi-racial population including an indigenous population with distinct customs, and people belonging to three major religious traditions, Christian, Hindu and Muslim. In contrast, Samoa has a homogenous population comprised almost entirely of ethnic Samoan Christians. It becomes clear that the author is actually referring to legal pluralism; a situation where there are two or more separate legal systems in a country – as, for example, in Malaysia, where there is a dual system of courts to include Muslim Sharia law as well as the law inherited from British common law under the Constitution, and some recognition in law of the customs of certain ethnic minorities as well. At present Samoa has two branches of law and courts under its Constitution, one set of courts being based on common law and the other, a Land and Titles Court, which adjudicates disputes in relation to Samoan customary land and titles. Both courts are subject to the protection of fundamental rights under the Constitution of Samoa…
