Access To Justice Research Articles

A perspective on utilizing legal frameworks to obligate service providers to protect human rights in Malawi: A Case of the Mandatory Provision on Pro Bono Services under the Legal Education and Legal Practitioners Act, 2018

Malawi's Constitution of 1994 changed the law in a pro-human rights direction. It provides for safe guarding measures aimed at protecting human rights. Malawi also has progressive pro-human rights legislations which emulate provisions of international and regional human rights instruments. However, enforcement of legal frameworks remains a challenge, partly due to poverty hence a large percentage of the population is unable to meet legal costs; lack of legal literacy and distance hinders access justice. A culture of silence continues to perpetuate human rights violations, so too uncoordinated efforts by service providers in protecting human rights. The majority of legal practitioners practice commercial law hence over burdening the Legal Aid Bureau with under privileged clients, whose cases mostly border on human rights violations. This paper will look at the opportunities government has in utilizing the legal frameworks to obligate duty bearers to provide services that aim to promote human rights including access to justice for under privileged Malawians. Legal practitioners are now, under the Legal Education and Legal Practitioners Act of 2018, obligated to provide pro bono legal services in order to have their licenses renewed. This has seen a rise in the number of under privileged people, particularly women, able to access justice at various levels. This can also be attributed to human rights awareness done by the Human Rights Commission, human rights lawyers and civil society organizations. This paper will therefore examine the positive impact such an initiative has had in protecting human rights and upholding the rule of law in Malawi.

Robbing the Judiciary: A Set Back for the Right To Access Justice in Kenya

Robbing the Judiciary: A Set Back for the Right To Access Justice in Kenya

Directions of improvement of normative regulation of judicial status of investigating judge

The article deals with legal regulation of the procedural status of an investigating judge. The author examines the standards that are formulated in the relevant international legal acts, in the practice of the ECHR, in the positions expressed by European experts, and relates to the activities of an investigating judge. They are classified into three groups: (a) Standards defining as a whole the requirements for the place and role of the court in the implementation of criminal justice, and therefore extend to all judicial functions, including judicial control function; b) standards defining the requirements for the organization and implementation of the judicial control function at the stage of pre-trial investigation; c) standards that determine the requirements for observance of human rights and freedoms, and thus serve as guiding points for subjects exercising judicial control powers. Standards defining in general the requirement for the place and role of the court in the implementation of criminal justice (such as the availability of justice, binding judgments, fair trial, due process hearing, equality before the law and the court, parties’ competition, transparency of the judicial system etc.), as well as standards that define requirements for the observance of human rights and freedoms (such as the right to liberty and security of person, the right to respect for private life, the right to protection, etc.) have already been sufficiently studied at the level of special investigations. The subject of this study is international standards, which determine the requirements for the organization and implementation of judicial control at the stage of pre-trial investigation. The author examines the standards of protection of constitutional rights by the court, a standard for clearly demarcating the role of investigator, prosecutor and investigating judge in order to ensure real competition at the stage of pre-trial investigation; the standard of the materiality of the right of restriction; standard of urgency of judicial control; the standard of the prohibition of the participation of an investigating judge in the examination of the merits. Key words: standards of activity of an investigating judge, judicial control powers, judicial control, the investigating judge.

Role of Law Students in Providing Legal Literacy through Street Law

Clinical Legal Education (CLE) is one of the programs that develop softskills for law students so that after graduation they’ll be ready to useand have a good spirit in helping others. The target group of theprogram are poor and/or marginalized who need help to get an accessto justice. CLE program consists of several activities, while the clinicwhich developed by the Faculty of law Pasundan University Bandung isthe provision of legal aid in the form of learning the law or the legalknowledge to those in need.

In Pursuit of Financial Justice: Local African Communities’ Quest for Legal Redress Against Business-Related Human Rights Abuses

Mining corporations in Africa stand accused of violating human rights. This article gives a voice to the plight suffered by local African communities in accessing justice to remedy the violation of their human rights as a result of the business activities of mining corporations. It focuses specifically on the right to access justice in order to ask whether the affected communities get a fair and effective share of financial remedies to mitigate against the violation of their rights to health, clean environment and property. It examines two separate and independent avenues through which local communities access justice and asks which of the two, judicial or non-judicial approaches, guarantee these local communities a right to be heard and a recourse to financial remedies.

The Hermit and the Boa Constrictor: Jeremy Bentham, Henry Brougham, and the Accessibility of Justice

Abstract This article examines the particularly complex relationship between Jeremy Bentham and Henry Brougham, with reference to the respective schemes that they devised in the late 1820s and early 1830s for achieving accessible justice through a new network of local courts across England and Wales. For a considerable part of the first few decades of the nineteenth century, Bentham and Brougham remained great friends and allies, but their disagreements gradually intensified, most notably following Brougham's six-hour law reform speech in the House of Commons on 7 February 1828, the printing of his Local Courts Bill on 7 June 1830, and the beginning of his Lord Chancellorship on 22 November of the same year. By analysing Bentham's highly detailed annotated copies of Brougham's law reform speech and Local Courts Bill—as well as Bentham's articles in the Westminster Review, and a substantial portion of his unpublished writings—it is shown how Bentham's complete loss of faith in Brougham as a reformer and as a legislator led him from describing Brougham as his own grandson to calling him an enemy of the people and a serpent. It is argued that the severity of Bentham's criticisms of the then Lord Chancellor in print, and the personal nature of the insults that he levelled towards him in manuscript, effectively dispel any suggestion that the two men were acting in concert on the issue of law reform in general, or on the matter of local courts in particular.

Building Grantee Capacity as a Core Strategy to Improve Local Food Systems

Greater Twin Cities United Way (GTCUW), Minnesota’s largest nongovernmental social services funder, connects local people and resources to change systems that limit our potential. Hunger and food insecurity require a spectrum of holistic responses that address emergency and root causes, while advancing long-term solutions for individuals, families, communities, and systems. To that end, GTCUW launched Full Lives, an innovative grantmaking strategy fostering a healthy and equitable community food system where all residents can thrive. This two-year, US$1.5 million effort employs a place-based approach to community and economic development to reduce food insecurity by improving food access, food affordability, and food justice for a low-income Minneapolis neighborhood facing systemic food security issues. Full Lives grantees focus on diverse aspects of the local supply chain that strengthen North Minneapolis’s local food system. Full Lives further augments this effort through grantee learning focused on increased organizational capacity and strengthened connections among grantee organizations, with a cross-cutting theme of commu­nity development. GTCUW partners with local technical assistance providers to implement flexible, innova­tive, responsive, and targeted capacity-building strategies and services. This strategic investment generates cross-agency collaboration, active networking, organizational development, and enhanced food systems tech­nical expertise. A robust evaluation—including qualitative and quantitative elements—reveals successes, chal­lenges, and lessons learned from the design and execution of these capacity-building strategies. Practice and measurement of this grantee capacity-building investment suggests strategies and considerations for partner­ship development, incorporation of grantee and community voice in planning, and delivery of ongoing educational activities for grantees. GTCUW would like to thank the General Mills Foundation for its generous support in making this work possible.

An environmental justice study on spatial access to parks for youth by using an improved 2SFCA method in Wuhan, China

Recent environmental justice studies have focused on measuring access to parks for young people due to the decreasing contact with nature for outdoor activities in most developed countries. Results of these analyses reflect the disparities in accessibility better but with digress among different access models. The present study aims to explore an appropriate accessibility measurement for youth and proposes a supply-demand improved two step floating catchment area (2FSCA) method to estimate environmental justice in access to parks in developing countries. Results indicated that the proposed method could identify more underserved communities and youth population with lower mean values of accessibility compared with the traditional 2SFCA method. Spatial accessibility exhibited clustering characteristics in three scenarios wherein high-accessibility areas were clustered nearby the center along the Yangtze River with larger parks, whereas those with low-accessibility were distributed in the eastern and southern regions. Among three age groups, the 0–6 years age group had slightly higher disparity of accessibility than the 7–12 years age group and the majority of teenagers could enjoy equitable park service. Spatial correlation analysis suggested that policy strategies and housing price were the main factors influencing accessibility and several non-dominating influencing factors were also identified from surrounding land use patterns. These findings may provide a comprehensive and realistic perspective on acquainting with accessibility and availability of green space for youth and help urban planners formulate effective policies and strategies to ease spatial imbalance.

Legal Aid as a Tool to Access Justice to the Poor and Needy Persons in Indian Constitution

Legal Aid as a Tool to Access Justice to the Poor and Needy Persons in Indian Constitution

Bedside Rationing Under Resource Constraints—A National Survey of Ethiopian Physicians’ Use of Criteria for Priority Setting

In low-income settings resource constraints force clinicians to make harsh choices. We examine the criteria Ethiopian physicians use in their bedside rationing decisions through a national survey at 49 public hospitals in Ethiopia. Substantial variation in weight given to different criteria were reported by the 587 participating physicians (response rate 91.7%). Young age, primary prevention, or the patient being the family’s economic provider increased likelihood of offering treatment to a patient, while small expected benefit or low chance of success diminished likelihood. More than 50% of responding physicians were indifferent to patient’s position in society, unhealthy behavior, and residence, while they varied widely in weight they gave to patient’s poverty, ability to work, and old age. While the majority of Ethiopian physicians reported allocation of resources that was compatible with national priorities, more contested criteria were also frequently reported. This might affect distributional justice and equity in health care access.

Environmental Justice and Public Beach Access

Beaches are an important recreational setting due to their provision of ideal open spaces for diverse water– and land–based recreation opportunities. Despite the importance of assessing the environmental justice of public beach access, few empirical studies have been conducted in community recreation. Using an environmental justice framework, this study examined whether inequities exist for certain racial/ethnic and socioeconomic groups with respect to the distribution of public beach access in the Detroit Metropolitan Area. Results indicated that inequitable public beach access is associated with population density, median housing value, elderly population, and nonvehicle ownership. Such findings can help public leisure agencies to assess environmental justice, a first step in developing more effective community recreation planning and management policies. Study implications, limitations, and recommendations for further research are also discussed.

Legal Aid to Ensure Access to Justice in Bangladesh

This paper lays down about how legal aid ensures access to justice in Bangladesh. Legal aid is a proven process by which exploitation of the poor can be removed and rule of law, equality and justice can be ensured for all citizens of the State. Being the owner of the State, getting legal aid is a right of the poor people. It is not a mercy or charity from the government. The State is under an obligation to ensure access to justice for all citizens . Nowadays, a legal aid can be justifiably said as a crying need to ensure social and legal justice in Bangladesh because most of the citizens are illiterate and they live below the poverty line which incidentally makes matters worse. Due to their financial crisis or lack of legal knowledge they are often precluded to access justice. In recognizing the legal aid as a right, the government has enacted some laws . In this paper, an attempt has been made to analyze and find out numerous legal the gaps, loopholes and complexities of the existing laws relating to legal aid services in Bangladesh and frame out a comprehensive solution for ensuring the aid program by adopting the qualitative and the analytical research methods. This paper is produced paper is prepared in order to know how legal aid ensures access to justice, what are the opportunities to get legal aid, who provide it, present scenario of it in Bangladesh etc. In this paper, the whole management system of legal aid, its loopholes, suggestions to overcome from the loopholes, procedures of getting legal aid, historical records with many chapters etc. are incorporated very nicely.

Introduction to Special Issue on Universal Design for Inclusive Pedagogy and a Future Research Agenda

This Special Issue seeks to address the needs of all postsecondary/tertiary students for a barrier-free learning environment to increase their academic achievement, engagement, learning mastery, and persistence to graduation. Universal Design for Inclusive Pedagogy (UDIP) is sensitive to diverse students and individual differences to promote access and equity. While our colleagues in elementary and secondary education have been addressing this issue for many years, postsecondary education is a newer field for this approach. The six articles in this issue break new ground with regards to expanding the boundaries of Universal Design (UD). Areas explored in this Special Issue are transformed curriculum, innovative teaching and learning practices, cross-national and cross-cultural student interactions, application of UD to academic pathways, and UDIP embedded into the institutional culture and policies. The central themes of the articles are increased access, equity, and social justice for all students.

The process of litigation for medical errors in Saudi Arabia and the United Kingdom.

Efficient process of litigation of medical errors is key to ensure fair, speedy, and accessible justice system. The conditions for establishing medical negligence are similar in both legal systems. These conditions include the duty of care, breach of that duty of care, the damages, and establishing causation. A culture of litigation and compensation is growing in UK and Saudi Arabia; however the cost of medical claims and awarded compensations are much more in UK compared to Saudi Arabia. In Saudi Arabia, there is a need for more transparency in the documentation and publication of litigated medical errors. In addition, there is a need to introduce interventions to shorten the duration of litigation in both legal systems. Financial caps on awarded compensation and caps on expert and legal fees are potential strategies to control the cost of medical errors which seem to work well in the Saudi model.

Entre droit privé réglementaire et droit privé fondé sur l’autonomie

Le Droit privé réglementaire européen (ERPL) émergent peut être interprété comme étant un ensemble d’instruments mis au service d’objectifs collectifs et donc comme étant le signe d’une rupture radicale du droit privé de l’Union européenne; mais cela n’est pas nécessaire. Le présent article propose une interprétation alternative des trois piliers fondateurs de l’ERPL que sont son recours à la notion d’autonomie réglementée, son soutien à la justice de l’accès en tant que fondement normatif et sa critique de la distinction public/privé en tant qu’elle se réfère au droit de l’Union européenne. L’ERPL, dans le cadre de ma reconstruction, est un modèle pour un système de droit privé qui recouvre les engagements normatifs à l’auto-détermination, et donc l’égalité substantielle, puisque son infrastructure normative sous-jacente n’est pas excessivement enracinée dans le modèle judiciaire et attache de l’importance aux considérations publiques. L’autonomie réglementée et la justice de l’accès, selon cette approche, constituent des manifestations locales des prescriptions de la justice relationnelle, qui se situe au cœur du droit privé fondé sur l’autonomie, correctement interprété. Cette vision est, selon moi, attirante à la fois normativement et doctrinalement ; elle est également particulièrement adaptée à notre ère transnationale, parce qu’elle fournit un fondement non statique aux prescriptions de la non-discrimination et de l’adaptation.

Ensuring Justice in Access to Investigational Neurological Drugs

Patients who suffer from life-threatening illnesses or are stricken with conditions that could result in serious morbidity who have exhausted all appropriate treatments may choose to try, through the Food and Drug Administration's expanded access program, an investigational drug or device in development. The program has succeeded for decades in allowing patients to access potentially helpful but still experimental agents. Nevertheless, the administration of investigational drugs outside of clinical trials raises several ethical issues. Of particular concern are the validity of informed consent and the absence of a framework to ensure that experimental drugs are allocated justly and transparently. Although there are some safeguards to help protect the soundness of consent, little work to date has been done to guarantee that investigational medical products are allocated justly and transparently. We introduce a novel pilot project that seeks to address this issue.

OER and Social Justice: A Colloquium at Oregon State University

INTRODUCTION Librarians are most likely to address issues of scholarly communication, including information economics and information privilege, with faculty and graduate students who are researching and publishing. However, undergraduate students, being both consumers and creators of information, should also be aware of these issues and can become advocates for open access. While they may not be publishing, the high cost of information directly affects students. They are often unaware the economic models that drive the price of information creation and access. Scholarly communication is not often included in basic information literacy instruction. Including undergraduates in discussions or activities surrounding open access and social justice topics is one way to help create future advocates. DESCRIPTION OF PROGRAM Two librarians developed a 2-credit, 10-week Honors College course on open educational resources and social justice targeted at undergraduate students. The purpose of the course was to raise awareness among undergraduates on issues of scholarly communication through activities, discussion, and reflection. Course activities were designed to help students discover, synthesize, and reflect on social justice and information access. NEXT STEPS Feedback from the students indicated that the course content was appropriate and that students had a better understanding of these issues and could formulate arguments both for and against open access. Some changes to the course structure and content are under development to give students more opportunities to act as advocates and informed citizens.

El desempeño del docente como factor asociado a la calidad educativa en América Latina

El tema de este ensayo se ubica en los estudios actuales sobre calidad de la educación y, en este caso, la calidad asociada al desempeño docente, esta relación aparece contextualizada en América Latina. El propósito que se sigue con este trabajo es argumentar la significación y el lugar que ocupa el desempeño docente como factor directamente asociado a la calidad educativa. Se sostienen algunas ideas básicas: a saber, América Latina no ha satisfecho metas elementales en cuanto a equidad y justicia en el acceso a la educación, lo que representa un lastre en el trabajo por la calidad de este servicio; la calidad educativa está asociada a un conjunto de factores entre los que se cuentan los factores económicos, políticos, culturales, científicos y tecnológicos, así como un importante factor humano: el desempeño docente, que resulta vital según la postura que se sostiene. En ese orden, se señalan las limitaciones que se presentan hoy en el proceso de formación inicial y continua del personal docente, así como los desafíos que debe encarar como parte de su desempeño para brindar una respuesta coherente que implica una educación de calidad en el presente siglo y los cambios sociales, culturales y tecnológicos que se viven a diario. Este ensayo es la expresión de una sistematización teórica, sobre la base de consultas de diversas fuentes sobre el tema, en la que se resaltan, por su valor, informes de organismos internacionales.

Alleged Financial Abuse of Those under an Enduring Power of Attorney: An Exploratory Study

This article examines the issue of alleged elder financial abuse arising from the misuse of an enduring power of attorney (EPA) and the experiences of those vulnerable elders in attempting to access justice to gain information about their situation and/or to remedy the abuse. To achieve this, case file notes from 100 individuals aged sixty-five years and over who sought assistance from an Australian not-for-profit advocacy organisation were analysed. In particular, this article focuses on the nature of the allegations of financial abuse to illustrate the complexities that exist for those in these circumstances. Second, it will consider both the barriers and enablers of access to justice evident in the case files of the individual alleged victims. Lastly, based on the evidence presented, it will consider how these circumstances can be better managed or improved upon, particularly from the perspective of service providers and aged-care professionals.

Education and Development: Dynamics of Access, Equity, and Social Justice in Nigeria

Widening access to education as social justice is basic in any discourse on educational investment, growth and development in developing country such as Nigeria. Presently, there is disconnect between educational development expectations and public policy frameworks designed to drive the united nations sustainable development goals(SDGs) in 2030 through access, equity and social justice in educational provision in developing countries. This paper focuses on education and development deficits in the light of the challenges of ensuring access, equity and social justice as envisaged in the SDGs 169 targets. The paper adopted a qualitative research method as it is analytical in framework. Among other things, this study showed the elements of exclusions and inequalities which are prevalent in public policies that are meant to achieve sustainable development goals through education. The paper sustains that inequalities, corruption, leadership deficit and weak institutions among others constitute major obstacles to access and social justices in educational delivery in Nigeria. Also, financial and information poverties respectively were found to have accounted for sustained deprivation indexes in access to educational development which compromise access, equity and social justice for sustainable development in developing countries. Recommendations are made on ways to mitigate exclusionary factors on access, equity and social justice in educational development in developing countries.