The Parliament of Vanuatu is the primary law-making body today, but pre-independence French and British statutes, English common law principles and indigenous custom all enjoy constitutional and judicial recognition to some extent.
Vanuatu did not exist as a politically, judicially or even conceptually unified entity prior to its being named the "New Hebrides" by James Cook in 1774, and subsequently its joint colonisation by France and the United Kingdom in 1906.
Art.95 states that pre-independence "Joint Regulations and subsidiary legislation", as well as any "British and French laws in force or applied in Vanuatu" at the time of independence, continue to apply "with such adaptations as may be necessary to bring them into conformity with the Constitution", and (in the English version of the Constitution) "wherever possible taking due account of custom", until and unless repealed by Parliament.
[4] Art.95 has been interpreted as recognising the continuance of English common law and principles of equity as well as British and colonial statutes.
The Public Solicitor's Act of 1984 made further provisions by ensuring that the person filling the position was a legal practitioner.
[15] The Public Solicitor is to provide legal assistance to needy individuals or to any person when directed by the Supreme Court of Vanuatu.
[16] The office is dependent on graduate lawyers who do not possess the two-year requirement necessary to practice before any court of law in Vanuatu.
[28] In those rare cases in which French and British laws applicable in Vanuatu may contradict each other, Chief Justice Vaudin d'Imecourt reasoned in Banga v Waiwo (1996) that the courts should "find a solution in conformity with the rules of equity".
[33] Miranda Forsyth, of the University of the South Pacific, has argued that custom (known in Bislama as kastom) is de facto ignored by courts, and solely (and unofficially) "administered by communities and chiefs".