Download the file - United Nations Rule of Law

The Working Group has noted that this is a topicthat has not yet attracted sufficient attention inacademic thinking about access to justice. Thereis a certain tendency to equate access to justicewith access to legal services, assuming that theonly road to justice leads through lawyers andcourts. This is rapidly changing, however, nowthat even the Western world discovers that manypeople appear in courts without legal representationand that information about legal rights anddispute resolution is an essential tool for empowerment,as well as for prevention of social strife.The UK government even set up a Public LegalEducation and Support (PLEAS) Task Force. Atthis stage, however, the available information islimited, and this is certainly an issue on whichfurther research is warranted.Information about Norms: Legal EducationWithin this strategy that encourages self-help,know-how about legal norms is essential. Poorpeople may not receive the protection or opportunitiesto which they are legally entitled becausethey do not know the law or do not know how togo about securing the assistance of someone whocan provide the necessary help. This lack of informationengenders vulnerability to exploitation andabuse, and impedes legal empowerment (NCLEPKenya 2007, NCLEP Philippines 2007). In manydeveloping countries, simply finding out whatthe law is can be a time-consuming and costlyendeavour. In Bangladesh, for instance, the governmentonly publishes a small number of copiesof the statutes passed by Parliament, and thesewere available only to those who pay a fee. Thefew public libraries in Bangladesh suffer from anacute shortage of legal resources (Afroz 2006).In Tajikistan, new statutes are typically publishedonly in the Parliamentary Gazette, which is notwidely accessible, and ministerial decrees arenot published at all. This makes the simple taskof figuring out what the law is a time-consumingchore even for a trained legal professional (ADB2002). Furthermore, many countries draft andadminister the law only in the national language(often the language of the former colonial government),which many of the poor do not speak. Thislanguage barrier creates a significant transactioncost for poor people who might otherwise availthemselves of the legal system. 4An obvious way to remedy this is to inform peoplemore broadly about norms and interventions thatthey may have to rely on. Information technologyis arguably the most promising avenue forthis, now that the poor will increasingly have accessto internet connections close to the placeswhere they live. Preferably, such informationmust address the practical priorities of specificpopulations. Street vendors want to know whichspecific regulations allow them to ply their trade;what specific lawyers, government offices or nongovernmentalorganisations (NGOs) they can goto for help if police harass them; or how to pressfor reforms of laws that have not yet formalisedtheir status and protected their livelihoods. Conversely,women living in societies in which thelaws discriminate against them may be interestedin constitutional provisions or international humanrights treaties that at least provide a basisfor hope, confidence and activism in favour ofequal rights. The information should also begeared towards the best practices for solving theproblems the poor face. What are the rules andthe best ways for solving inheritance problems? Afarmer working for years on a plot of land who isconfronted by others who show him a deed thatseems to prove their property-rights will probablywant to know the going rate for settling such aproblem, instead of getting abstract informationfrom the civil code about property and leasingcontracts (Barendrecht and Van Nispen 2007).19