Microjustice Initiative

Focus on most urgent justiciable problems 

Access to justice for people and small business owners with issues in areas of:

• Identity documents• Divorce, child support and inheritance• Land and home property • Work and payment• Neighbor relations• Access to government services.

Across countries we see:

Innovative ways to deliver justice

Combining the best from:– Rights based approaches (human rights, legal

procedure, property rights)

– Local practices and knowledge about what works

– Negotiation, mediation,conflict resolution know how

– Practice of adjudication by lower courts

– Empirical evidence

Legal Empowerment and Access to Justice

Commission Report June 2008 www.undp.org/legalempowerment

Access to justice:

• Justiciable problems starting points

• Build on options poor people have available

• Lower costs and increase the justness and fairness of outcomes

• Remedying of market failure: let justice services develop bottom up

Commission Legal Empowerment: Four Strategies

• Improved dissemination of legal information and formation of peer groups (self-help strategies)

• Broadening the scope of legal services

• Legal simplification and standardization

• Recognition of informal justice system + education, evolution, targeted constraints

Action Research with Oxfam Novib, Praxis, Cewla, Deme So, Haguruka, ASK

• Mediators/facilitators/lawyers in 5 countries – Difficult circumstances. Hard to make it work.

Much creativity. Develop working methods – How are we doing? What are colleagues in other

countries doing?– What is a good outcome for my clients?

• Some managers of NGO’s worry about– How can our good work become sustainable?

Who will fund next project? – How can we show we deliver good value?

Microjustice Initiative

Partnership of organizations that aim for better access to justice, open to:

• Organizations supplying legal aid, mediation or local court services– who want to share their experiences and to learn

from others

• Organizations that support this – with financial and human resources, network

contacts and research and development

Mission

• To inspire, give confidence and strengthen legal aid providers, judges, and informal tribunals.

• So that they can increase their effectiveness and reach.

Partners Contributing to Sharing Rules and Tools

• The Lawyers for Justice and Peace in Egypt

• Centre for Egyptian Woman Legal Assistance (Cairo, Egypt)

• Praxis Support to Social Development (Baku, Azerbaijan),

• ADHOC The Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association (Cambodia)

• Zoa (Cambodia)

• Kantor Bantuan Hukum (KBH), legal aid office (Lampung, Indonesia)

• The International Rescue Committee (Thailand)

• Ain Shalish Kendra (Bangla Desh)

• Legal Aid Board (Rwanda)• Hagaruka (Rwanda)• Deme So (Mali)• Wildaf (Mali)• NaiLab (Nairobi, IT partner)

Partners Supporting Development of Microjustice/Bottom Up Justice

• Hague Institute for Internationalization of Law (Hiil): partnership building through Microjustice Initiative Foundation

• Innovating Justice/Hague Rule of Law Network: website

• Oxfam Novib: network justice providers and program Delivery of Justice

• DAS Rechtsbijstand: tool development

• Tilburg University/Tisco: knowledge sharing dispute systems

• 1% Club: IT interfaces and community building

• Nijenrode University: knowledge sharing microservices and business models

• Centre for International Legal Cooperation (CILC): education programs

• City of The Hague: innovation subsidy and networking

• Ministry of Economic Affairs: innovation subsidy

• Publimarket : awareness and communication