Roma Customary Law and Gender Roles in the Practice of Portuguese Courts

Abstract

While Roma law is not officially recognised as “proper law” and remains scarcely known, it is often relied on by Roma parties in litigation before Portuguese courts, most notably in cases involving child marriages and early school leaving by Roma girls. The Roma are Portugal’s most visible ethnic minority and occupy a singular position in the “multicultural jurisprudence” of Portuguese courts, as theirs are the “culture defences” most often brought before the courts, and also those that the courts are most likely to address directly in their reasonings, either to dismiss or to acknowledge their relevance to the adjudication of the cases at bar. Based on findings from a socio-legal research project into the case law of Portuguese courts, conducted between 2018 and 2022, this article discusses how Roma law and its norms about gender roles are reflected and challenged in court practice, based on the reasonings of selected judgments, and on the opinions of judges and prosecutors interviewed for the project.