When people do not approach a formal court of law to settle their disputes, and cannot enter into out-of-court settlements either, what do they do? I find that people install court-like processes which mimetically follow the court procedures, executing the settlement as if the decision were rendered officially. By examining such practices in the case of divorce-related disputes in India, I advance a theory of legal apparitions, a phenomenon in which cosmetic mimicry of legal processes creates a new form of extra-legal resolution. This is likely to prevail in societies where access to justice is hindered due to socio-institutional factors and customary forms of adjudication are not possible (sometimes because of state law’s design). This idea can be used to explain a range of practices observed in South Asian societies, where people’s imagination of, and interaction with, legal apparatuses creates new forms of institutions.

当人们不通过正式法庭解决纠纷，也无法达成庭外和解时，他们该怎么办？我发现人们安装了类似法庭的程序，模仿法庭程序，执行和解，就像正式做出决定一样。通过研究印度离婚相关纠纷案件中的此类做法，我提出了一种法律幽灵理论，在这种现象中，对法律程序的表面模仿创造了一种新形式的法外解决方式。在由于社会制度因素而无法诉诸司法且无法进行习惯形式的裁决（有时是由于州法律的设计）的社会中，这种情况可能会普遍存在。这个想法可以用来解释在南亚社会观察到的一系列做法，