Accessing legal services is expensive. Due to socioeconomic factors, many Americans, particularly Black people, are unable to access legal services to protect them in court and the criminal justice system. These resources discuss the gaps in access to justice and how to hopefully begin to close these gaps.
Access to Justice by
"Equal Justice Under Law." This promise appears on courthouse doors across the land. But it by no means describes what goes on inside them. Equal access to justice is one of America's most proudly proclaimed principles. And one of its most frequently violated.In theory, the United States is deeply committed to individual rights. Yet few Americans can afford the legal representation necessary to exercise them. Only one percent of the nation's lawyers serve our poorest citizens, translating to one lawyer for every 1,400 poor people. The nation with theworld's greatest concentration of lawyers has one of the least accessible systems of justice.Written by America's leading expert on legal ethics, Access to Justice vividly chronicles the wide gap between the lofty aspirations and harsh realities of American justice. As Deborah L. Rhode demonstrates, America is overlawyered and underrepresented: there is too much law for those who canafford it and too little for everyone else. Although indigent defendants are entitled to legal representation, what satisfies that standard is an affront to the civilized world, and especially shameful for a nation that considers itself a world leader in human rights. Convictions are regularlyupheld when lawyers are asleep, on drugs, mentally incapacitated, or even parking their car during the prosecution's case. The justice system is not only inaccessible for the poor; it is increasingly out of reach for the American middle class as well. Rhode's analysis also includes on the firstcomprehensive national study of lawyers' charitable pro bono work ever conducted, encompassing some 3,000 attorneys. The average lawyer, she finds, contributes less than half an hour a week and fifty cents a day in support of representation for those who cannot afford it.Access to Justice avoids both simplistic lawyer-bashing and liberal lament. Rhode outlines what could and should be done to curb frivolous litigation, but focuses her attention squarely on the far greater problem of unnecessary expense and unaffordable remedies. A scathing indictment of America'slegal status quo, Access to Justice presents no mere manifesto but a reasoned and realistic agenda for lasting reform.
Marginalized Communities and Access to Justice by
Marginalized Communities and Access to Justice is a comparative study, by leading researchers in the field of law and justice, of the imperatives and constraints of access to justice among a number of marginalized communities. A central feature of the rule of law is the equality of all before the law. As part of this equality, all persons have the right to the protection of their rights by the state, particularly the judiciary. Therefore equal access to the courts and other organs of the state concerned with the enforcement of the law is central. These studies - undertaken by internationally renowned scholars and practitioners - examine the role of courts and similar bodies in administering the laws that pertain to the entitlements of marginalized communities, and address individuals' and organisations' access to institutions of justice: primarily, but not exclusively, courts. They raise broad questions about the commitment of the state to law and human rights as the principal framework for policy and executive authority, as well as the impetus to law reform through litigation. Offering insights into the difficulties of enforcing, and indeed of the will to enforce, the law, this book thus engages fundamental questions about value of engagement with the formal legal system for marginalized communities.
Access to Justice As a Human Right by
In international law, as in any other legal system, respect and protection of human rights can be guaranteed only by the availability of effective judicial remedies. When a right is violated or damage is caused, access to justice is of fundamental importance for the injured individual and itis an essential component of the rule of law. Yet, access to justice as a human right remains problematic in international law. First, because individual access to international justice remains exceptional and based on specific treaty arrangements, rather than on general principles of internationallaw; second, because even when such right is guaranteed as a matter of treaty obligation, other norms or doctrines of international law may effectively impede its exercise, as in the case of sovereign immunity or non reviewability of UN Security Council measures directly affecting individuals.Further, even access to domestic legal remedies is suffering because of the constraints put by security threats, such as terrorism, on the full protection of freedom and human rights.This collection of essays offers seven distinct perspectives on the present status of access to justice: its development in customary international law, the stress put on it in times of emergency, its problematic exercise in the case of violations of the law of war, its application to torturevictims, its development in the case law of the UN Human Rights Committee and of the European Court of Human Rights, its application to the emerging field of environmental justice, and finally access to justice as part of fundamental rights in European law.
Legal Needs Surveys and Access to Justice by
This report offers an empirical tool to help planners, statisticians, policy makers and advocates understand people's everyday legal problems and experience with the justice system. It sets out a framework for the conceptualisation, implementation and analysis of legal needs surveys and is informed by analysis of a wide range of national surveys conducted over the last 25 years. It provides guidance and recommendations in a modular way, allowing application into different types of surveys. It also outlines opportunities for legal needs-based indicators that strengthen our understanding of access to civil justice.