Access to justice means that individuals have fair and equal access to the legal system and legal remedies; e.g. access to legal information, representation, and a fair trial. It ensures that individuals can seek legal remedies when their rights are violated or when they face discrimination, oppression, or injustice. It remains a significant challenge for millions of people worldwide, particularly marginalized and vulnerable populations.
At its core, access to justice entails the availability of legal mechanisms and institutions that guarantee equal treatment before the law. This means having courts, tribunals, and other dispute resolution mechanisms that are accessible, impartial, and effective. It also requires the availability of legal aid and assistance programs to ensure that those who cannot afford legal representation are not deprived of their rights.
Access to justice also involves ensuring that individuals have the knowledge and capacity to assert their rights. Unfortunately, this knowledge and capacity is often compromised by a range of barriers, including economic, social, cultural, and institutional factors. Poverty remains one of the most significant barriers, as many people simply cannot afford the costs associated with legal representation, court fees, and other expenses. This leads to a situation where the poor are disproportionately denied justice, perpetuating cycles of inequality and marginalization.
Marginalized groups such as women, minorities, indigenous peoples, persons with disabilities, and LGBTQ+ individuals often face additional barriers to accessing justice due to discrimination, stigma, and systemic biases within the legal system. Discriminatory laws and practices further exacerbate these challenges, denying certain groups equal protection under the law.
Legal systems with inefficiencies, corruption, and lack of accountability undermines trust in justice systems and deters people from seeking redress. Restrictive laws and regulations that limit freedom of expression, assembly, and association, may also restrict an individuals’ ability to challenge injustice and hold authorities accountable.
Addressing these barriers requires a multifaceted approach that addresses both legal and non-legal factors. This includes legal reforms to ensure equality before the law, measures to increase affordability and availability of legal services, and initiatives to promote legal literacy and empowerment among marginalized communities. Additionally, efforts to combat corruption, strengthen judicial independence, and promote human rights education are essential for building a more inclusive and equitable justice system.
The library has many resources available access to justice. Some selections are below:
Disabled justice? Access to justice and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
Eilionóir Flynn
ISBN: 9781472418593
On the RWI Shelf: 61:2 FLY
From the publisher: Disability offers a new lens through which to view the effectiveness of access to justice, and the inclusiveness of the justice system as a whole. This book analyses the experience of people with disabilities through the entire justice system, from making a complaint, to investigation, and through the court/tribunal process. It also considers the participation of people with disabilities in a variety of roles in the justice system – as witness, defendant, complainant, plaintiff, lawyer, judge and juror. More broadly, it also critically examines the subtle barriers of access to justice which might exist in a given society – including barriers to grassroots disability advocacy, legal education and training, the right to vote and the right to stand for election which may apply to people with disabilities. The book is international and comparative in scope with a focus primarily on examples of legal practice and justice systems in common law countries. The work will be of interest to scholars working in the areas of human rights, equality and non-discrimination, disability rights activists and legal professionals who work with people with disabilities to achieve access to justice.
Victims’ access to justice historical and comparative perspectives
Edited by Pamela Cox and Sandra Walklate.
ISBN: 9781000631548
From the publisher: Why have many victim-centred policy initiatives met with so little success?
How have those initiatives unfolded differently in different global jurisdictions over different periods of time? This book aims to address these questions.
Building on a major research project exploring victims’ access to justice over time and place, Victims’ Access to Justice considers the potentialities for victims’ participation in criminal justice systems and in victim programmes both in historical and comparative context. It considers a range of topics: ways of identifying and accommodating victims’ needs and senses of justice; the impacts for criminal justice systems of seeking to accommodate these; and the ways in which adversarial criminal justice systems, in particular, may enable or inhibit victim participation.
This is essential reading for all those engaged in understanding and working with victims of crime.
Rough justice: The International Criminal Court in a world of power politics
David Bosco
ISBN: 9780199844135
On the RWI Shelf : 81 BOS
From the publisher: Ten years ago, in the wake of massive crimes in central Africa and the Balkans, the first permanent international criminal court was established in The Hague despite resistance from some of the world’s most powerful states. In the past decade, the court has grown from a few staff in an empty building to a bustling institution with more than a thousand lawyers, investigators, and administrators from around the world. Despite its growth and the backing of more than 120 nations, the ICC is still struggling to assert itself in often turbulent political crises.
The ICC is generally autonomous in its ability to select cases and investigate crimes, but it is ultimately dependent on sovereign states, and particularly on the world’s leading powers. These states can provide the diplomatic, economic, and military clout the court often needs to get cooperation-and to arrest suspects. But states don’t expend precious political capital lightly, and the court has often struggled to get the help it needs. When their interests are most affected, moreover, powerful states usually want the court to keep its distance. Directly and indirectly, they make their preferences known in The Hague.
Rough Justice grapples with the court’s basic dilemma: designed to be apolitical, it requires the support of politicians who pursue national interests and answer to domestic audiences. Through a sharp analysis of the dynamics at work behind the scenes, Bosco assesses the ways in which powerful states have shaped the court’s effort to transform the vision of international justice into reality. This will be the definitive account of the Court and its uneven progress toward advancing accountability around the world.
ILAC rule of law assessment report: still looking for justice : customary law, the courts and access to justice in Liberia / International Legal Assistance Consortium (ILAC)
Karoline Bonde and Rhodri Williams
ISBN: 9789198458701
On the RWI Shelf: 48:2 BON
From the publisher: “Still Looking for Justice in Liberia” investigates the status of the access to justice in Liberia. In 2019, an ILAC team of experts representing four ILAC member organisations met with formal and customary justice actors to assess how to expand access to justice by improving the effectiveness of the two legal systems, as well as the interplay between them.
Liberia’s two parallel legal systems both fulfill an important role. Customary authorities keep the peace in rural areas and absorb a daily caseload of minor grievances that, taken together, would swamp the already overburdened formal courts. At the same time, traditional authorities have neither capacity nor a legal mandate to address serious crimes of violence and are therefore dependent on the formal justice system to deal effectively with such crimes.
However, due to lack of resources and capacity, the formal justice system is perceived as not holding up its end of this bargain. When justice seekers turn to the formal justice system they are often met with countless unpredictable fees that they have to pay to have case brought forward, if they cannot afford to pay, the offender is likely to be released back to their communities without prosecution or explanation as to why.
As a result, courts in Liberia have become at best a bottleneck and at worst an obstacle to access to justice, failing to live up to their potential to resolve disputes, and complicating the ability of the customary authorities to play their complementary role. The formal justice systems failure has effectively led to cases of mob violence with individuals targeting police, court facilities, and the property of suspects. There is also talk of increased “bush justice” whereby suspects are subjected to extra-legal proceedings and severe punishments. In a conflict-affected setting like Liberia, violent responses to grievance can spill over into more generalised insecurity. Finding ways to ensure that justice is effective, accessible and satisfactory for ordinary Liberians is therefore a crucial step towards further stabilisation and conflict prevention in Liberia