Category Legal Services

New Report Highlights People-Centred Justice Initiatives and Good Practices around the World

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The Justice Action Coalition (JAC), a group comprised of over 30 countries and organizations seeking to advance equal access to justice for all, last week released a new report entitled, “Good Practices and Commitments on People-Centered Justice”. The report highlights the commitments and work of JAC members in furthering people-centered access to justice. Good practices and initiatives highlighted in the report include:

  • Canada’s National Action Plan on Open Government (2022-2024) which includes pledges to share justice-related data, the use of plain language, and efforts to ensure access to justice for underrepresented and marginalized populations.
  • Columbia’s Diferencia Foundationwhich opened Alternative Conflict Resolution Centers in Bogotá and Medellín, with two target populations: LGBTI peoples and indigenous communities. These centres advance legal empowerment and the peaceful resolution of conflicts for historically discriminated peoples in Columbia.  
  • Portugal’s Justice Ministry has released a centralized, digital platform – RAL+ – that allows for alternative dispute resolution (ADR) case management. Using RAL+, Portuguese citizens can seek workplace mediation, request information, and monitor their cases. Justice professionals can track cases in real time and readily interact with parties and representatives.
  • In 2023, Indonesia created a Paralegal Justice Academy, which trains village chiefs to be paralegals. In the months since it launched, 300 chiefs have been trained, aiding local dispute resolution across the country.
  • The Solomon Islands’ Paralegalism Project trains and deploys paralegals to remote communities, educating community members on their rights and access to justice services. Since 2019, 25,441 people have been reached with this program.
  • The United States’ USAID Program in 2023 launched a Rule of Law Innovation, Design Experimentation, Acceleration, and Solutions (IDEAS) Lab. The Lab supports access to justice initiatives across the globe – for instance, facilitating a local justice needs survey in Kyrgyzstan, and starting an online community justice house in Ukraine.
  • Supported by the Dutch government, UNDP and UN Women have brought mobile legal aid services to Tanzania and Uganda, helping over 20,000 women and girls with claims related to land use, gender-based violence, marriage, and divorce.

You can read the full report in English here: https://cic.nyu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/JAC-Good-Practices-and-Commitments-on-People-Centered-Justice-June-2023.pdf.

Manitoba Regulatory Sandbox Pilot Program Accepting Proposals

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A pilot program that aims to provide Manitobans with new and innovative legal service options is now accepting proposals. The Law Society of Manitoba’s “Regulatory Sandbox” pilot program was created to facilitate legal service delivery by lawyers in ways that would not be allowed under current regulations. The program will also provide a safe environment for non-lawyers to provide advice and legal help.

For more information about the Regulatory Sandbox Pilot Program, including access to the application and information on how to submit a proposal, visit the Law Society of Manitoba website here: https://lawsociety.mb.ca/about/lsm-initiatives/access-to-justice/regulatory-sandbox-pilot-program/. Legal service providers who are not lawyers are encouraged to apply.

New Report Examines Pathways to Justice in British Columbia

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The Access to Justice Centre for Excellence at the University of Victoria (UVic ACE) has published new research that examines the pathways that people in British Columbia take to solve their civil justice problems. Understanding what people do when they experience a serious civil justice problem and the pathways that are accessible to them to resolve those problems offers important insights into people’s legal awareness and the impact of public legal education and information for the public. It also provides understandings on how people engage with the justice system. In addition, the increased use of technology in the legal sector is transforming how people interact with the legal system and requires further study to understand the impacts for existing pathways and the new pathways that will become available.

The “Navigating Access to Justice Pathways” report includes findings from an exploratory study of experiences with civil and family law problems in British Columbia that aims to:

  • Develop a more robust understanding of how people define the civil and family law justice problems they experience
  • Map common pathways used to resolve civil and family justice problems
  • Identify the barriers people face when they try to access certain pathways and the impact of those barriers on their decisions
  • Understand how people prioritize and manage multiple legal problems

Navigating Access to Justice Pathways: Problem Resolution Routes for People Experiencing Civil and Family Law Problems in British Columbia by Yvon Dandurand, Jessica Jahn, Cathy Tait, and Megan Capp is available online here: https://ajrn.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/5876c-navigatingaccesstojusticepathways_ace_april20_2022.pdf.

Study on the Costs and Benefits of Community-Based Justice in Sierra Leone Makes Important Recommendations for Scaling Up Community Justice Services

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On average, it costs users of local, paralegal services in Sierra Leone US $8.44 to access the service, far below what it costs to access the formal justice system. According to a new report on the Costs and Benefits of Community-Based Justice in Sierra Leone, without these community-based justice services, the government would spend approximately US $23.3M to support access to justice services through the formal justice system. This compares with approximately US $18.3M to access community-based justice services. This is among several important findings from a first-of-its-kind study by the Center for Alternative Policy Research & Innovation on The Costs and Benefits of Community-Based Justice in Sierra Leone.

The report makes 10 recommendations for scaling up paralegal-based justice services, including:

  • Establishing a National Legal Empowerment Fund;
  • Funding exploratory research;
  • Further reducing out-of-pocket costs to access community-based justice services;
  • Meaningfully integrating community-based justice services in the broader justice sector; and
  • Building robust and efficient monitoring and evaluation systems.

The Costs and Benefits of Community-Based Justice in Sierra Leone by Felix Marco Conteh, Yakama Manty Jones, Sonkita Conteh, Henry Mbawa and Aisha Fofana Ibrahim (CAPRI) is available online here: https://www.caprisl.org/post/the-costs-and-benefits-of-community-based-justice-in-sierra-leone.

This project was funded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and is one of the final research outputs from a multi-country research initiative on Community-Based Justice Research.

Project to Assess Unbundled Legal Services Publishes Phase 1 Report

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The Family Law Unbundled Legal Services Research Project (ULSRP) is an initiative by the Access to Justice BC Unbundling Working Group, Family Justice Innovation Lab Society, and Standpoint Decisions Inc. which seeks to examine the effectiveness of family unbundled legal services. The project also aims to “facilitate access to justice by enhancing the working relationships between the existing community of [unbundled legal services] providers and BC citizens most in need of unbundled-type services.”

The project is being conducted in two phases, with the focus of Phase 1 to test and demonstrate the feasibility and benefits of a proposed model for ongoing feedback from unbundled legal services clients. Data collected from this project will help service providers, innovators and policy-makers to assess the effectiveness of unbundled family legal services and better understand the user/client experience. The final report from Phase 1 of the Family Law Unbundled Legal Services Research Project is available here: https://www.bcfamilyinnovationlab.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/ULSRP-Phase-1-Report-2021-12-08-File-No-2020-LLR-3552-no-financials.pdf.

Social Security Tribunal of Canada Publishes Evaluation on Plain Language Decision-Writing

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The Social Security Tribunal of Canada (SST) has published an evaluation on their progress in writing decisions in plain language. The evaluation was spurred by a 2017 external program review that found that many SST clients faced significant obstacles to “receiving administrative justice in a simple, clear and timely manner”. The recently published evaluation is the result of a 3-year effort to shift to a more people-centred model that sees decisions written with less legal jargon and that are easier to understand by people who read at a grade 9 reading level or higher.

The evaluation, published on the Government of Canada website, includes details on the methodology used for the evaluation, the impact of training on different aspects of decision-writing, the readability scorecard for decisions in both English and French, and other information. “An Evaluation of How Easy it is to Read Decisions of the Social Security Tribunal” is available online here: https://www1.canada.ca/en/sst/plainlanguagereport.html.

New CBABC Report Outlines Ways to Improve BC’s Justice System

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The Canadian Bar Association, British Columbia Branch (CBABC) has published Agenda for Justice 2021, a plain language report that outlines recommendations for more timely, effective, accessible and impartial justice for all British Columbians. The report includes more than 40 recommendations and is organized into the following sections:

(1) Access to Justice for Families
(2) Meaningful Change for Indigenous Peoples
(3) Modernizing BC’s Justice and Legal Systems
(4) Ensuring Fairness for Everyone

The CBABC’s Agenda for Justice 2021 roadmap for action report is available online here: https://www.cbabc.org/Our-Work/Agenda-for-Justice.

American Academy of Arts & Sciences Publishes Civil Justice for All Report

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A new report from the American Academy of Arts & Sciences urges making access to civil justice a priority and offers recommendations to close the civil justice gap. The report, which was launched on 24 September 2020, is part of an extensive, multi-year project to examine the extent and consequences of the inability of Americans to access legal help for civil justice matters.

The newly published Civil Justice for All report offers seven recommendations:

  1. Significant financial and human resources investments to close the civil justice gap
  2. More lawyers who work to address the needs of low-income earners
  3. More lawyers who offer pro bono and other volunteer assistance
  4. Open legal marketplaces to allow non-lawyers to help resolve civil justice problems
  5. More collaboration between legal service providers and professionals in other sectors to address the non-legal dimensions of problems
  6. Make legal processes, legal information, forms and other resources easier for the public to understand and access
  7. Create a central body to coordinate and promote the recommendations above and to gather much-needed civil justice data

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought to the forefront many of the weaknesses in American civil society. It has also brought new challenges and worsened the civil justice gap. A major initiative to ensure access to civil justice is urgently needed to help address this growing problem.

Civil Justice for All: A Report and Recommendations from the Making Justice Accessible Initiative is available online here: https://www.amacad.org/publication/civil-justice-for-all.

New Book Examines What is Working and Not Working to Improve Access to Civil and Family Justice

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The Justice Crisis: The Cost and Value of Accessing Law edited by Trevor C.W. Farrow and Lesley A. Jacobs is a newly published book that provides an in-depth look at what is working and not working to improve access to civil and family justice in Canada.

The Justice Crisis uses new empirical research to explore the value associated with the provision of an effective justice system and the costs – individual and collective – of not providing accessible justice. The national and international importance of and the need for this kind of research is widely acknowledged.

Contributors to The Justice Crisis: The Cost and Value of Accessing Law include: Carolyn Carter, Thomas A. Cromwell, Ab Currie, Matthew Dylag, Trevor C.W. Farrow, Heather Heavin, Lesley A. Jacobs, Devon Kapoor, Michaela Keet, Jennifer Koshan, Herbert M. Kritzer, Moktar Lamari, Marylène Leduc, M. Jerry McHale, Lisa Moore, Janet Mosher, Pierre Noreau, Mitchell Perlmutter, Catherine Piché, Noel Semple, Lorne Sossin, Michael Trebilcock, Wanda Wiegers and David Wiseman.

The book’s foreword is written by The Honourable Thomas A. Cromwell, CC.

The Justice Crisis: The Cost and Value of Accessing Law is part of the 7-year Cost of Justice project led by the Canadian Forum on Civil Justice. The Cost of Justice project was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

The Justice Crisis: The Cost and Value of Accessing Law was published by UBC Press and is available here: www.ubcpress.ca/the-justice-crisis.

View the press release for The Justice Crisis: The Cost and Value of Accessing Law online here: https://news.yorku.ca/2020/09/02/new-evidence-on-the-justice-crisis-making-the-case-for-reform/.

UNODC, UNDP Report Explores Ways to Ensure Access to Justice in the Context of COVID-19

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The COVID-19 pandemic continues to affect justice systems around the world in unprecedented ways. From widespread court closures to dramatic increases in incidences of domestic violence, employment, housing and other civil justice problems, the impacts are extensive. They are also present additional challenges for vulnerable and marginalized populations.

A new report by UNODC and UNDP presents several considerations for legal practitioners and policy makers to help ensure access to justice during the current global health crisis. The “Ensuring Access to Justice in the Context of COVID-19″ report is divided into 3 sections: Preparation, Response and Recovery. While the report does not seek to be exhaustive in its discussion of important measures to consider during the crisis (as well as during subsequent waves of outbreaks), it highlights important considerations for the justice community to effectively respond to challenges in the short-, medium- and long-term.

“Ensuring Access to Justice in the Context of COVID-19” is available for download here: https://reliefweb.int/report/world/ensuring-access-justice-context-covid-19.