This is a 4-page informational resource on the basics of community paralegals, including an introductory description of what community paralegals are, how they work, and advantages of the community paralegal approach. This is followed by 3 brief case studies of community paralegals at work in Sierra Leone, Kenya and Indonesia.
Namati and the Sustainable Development Institute in Liberia (SDI), have worked with the community of Duah for over 3 years to document the community’s land and establish an inclusive local governance system for land and natural resources. In the spring of 2013, Duah faced a serious challenge: Clan elders agreed to a large land deal with a local palm oil investor without the involvement of the community or its new Land Governance Council. This Lesson from the Field describes how, with support from SDI, Duah community members held their leaders accountable to their newly adopted community by-laws and successfully reversed the land deal. The case of Duah highlights some of the challenges faced when promoting inclusive, participatory, and accountable community land management in rural Liberia.
Bangladesh is stoking an emerging AIDS epidemic with violent police abuse of sex workers, injection drug users and men who have sex with men. In this 51-page report, Human Rights Watch documents rapes, gang-rapes, beatings and abductions by both police officers and powerful criminals known as mastans. Their targets — sex workers, men who have sex with men and injection drug users — are both at high risk of HIV infection and the people most capable of bringing AIDS information and services to their peers. In a direct blow to the fight against AIDS, some of the abuses are committed against AIDS outreach workers. In one region of Bangladesh, HIV prevalence among injection drug users jumped from 1.7 percent in 2001 to 4 percent in 2002. While HIV prevalence in the population overall is reportedly still low, the country’s poverty, gender inequality, and proximity to raging epidemics in India and Southeast Asia point to the possibility of an AIDS explosion. Human Rights Watch urged Bangladesh to institute civilian review of police officers, to prosecute police and mastans who perpetrate abuses, to bring its criminal procedures in line with international standards, and to support peer-driven AIDS prevention services among persons at high risk of HIV.
The November 2020 election showed that once again Myanmar citizens continue to support a transition to a federal democratic political system despite the threat of the Covid-19 pandemic. The awareness that citizens have of their role in deepening democracy and state-building is not limited to voting in elections. As more citizens understand and exercise their legal rights, they have become increasingly involved in land governance mechanisms as citizens, farmers, and CSO representatives.
Namati and a coalition of non-governmental and civil society representatives have gathered constructive feedback for areas that require attention, to improve the functioning of the system specifically regarding the participation of non-governmental representatives in land management and governance systems.
This brief summarizes findings from the survey and discussions with 33 citizens/ farmers/civil society representatives actively working or involved in the land sector, who sit on various land governance bodies. We hope it will be useful in strengthening government action towards land management reform and in the process of drafting national land law with greater collaboration and participation of farmer/citizen/civil society representatives.
In 2011, the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) proposed the widening and upgrading of the existing National Highway (NH) 17, renaming it NH-66 in the process. It is mentioned in the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report and in the Environmental Management Plan (EMP) that the construction of the highway will reduce traffic, fuel consumption and accidents, and save time. It is also claimed by the project proponent that the construction of the highway will bring development in all the areas it passes through and lead to economic growth of the region.
The Centre for Policy Research (CPR) – Namati Environmental Justice (EJ) Program conducted a pilot study of the impacts of the project in April 2016 in the villages of Chandumata, Bogribail, Mavinkatta and Haldipur to understand the issues associated with the expansion of the NH in Uttara Kannada district. The pilot study showed that the NH project affected families beyond those who had lost their land to the project. The occupational areas and livelihoods of the coastal communities of the district were affected on a large scale as a result of the project. Many village communities lost the right of access to public property, such as public roads, drinking water sources and schools. Some communities had lost access to use common land. Several rivers, streams and creeks had been blocked for the construction of bridges and roads, and these blockages resulted in flooding and saltwater intrusion into farmlands during the monsoon. All these issues went beyond the primary concerns raised by the communities regarding land acquisition by the project. These concerns can be considered more significant as they were the unaccounted impacts of the project.
In view of all the above impacts of the highway project, the research team carried out the current study along with communities who had been affected by the highway expansion to assess and ascertain the extent and nature of social and environmental impacts caused by this project. The aim of the study was to understand the application of environmental regulations on the project, the various regulatory agencies involved in approving the project, and the status of legal compliance of the project in relation to its widespread socio–economic and environmental impacts in the district.
This report consists of three parts: The first section lays out the methodologies used to undertake this community-based groundtruthing of environmental and social impacts of the highway expansion project. The second section of the report provides an assessment of the project’s legal compliance with approval procedures and approval conditions. The third section of the report presents the landscape level project impacts identified through the study. This section also enumerates the estimated number of people affected by the specific project activities and violations of approval conditions.
The report highlights and suggests that given the scale and nature of project impacts, there is a grave need to bring to attention the burdens caused by the project beyond land acquisition. This study has focused on not only those people who have lost their land due to acquisition for the project, but also on those whose private and common land, homes, livelihood sources and local public infrastructure have been affected by the project operations. Since several of these impacts were not identified by the project through its EIA and EMP reports, the people affected by these impacts are invisible in the project’s implementation plans. The affected communities have tried hard to make themselves visible by lodging complaints and protests. The study provides an analytical basis to their claims for justice in light of these project impacts.
Jenna provides critical leadership and support to the operations and people functions of Namati to ensure we are better, stronger, and more effective as we continue to grow the movement for legal empowerment. Jenna started at Namati as a Fellow with Namati’s Learning team while she was finishing her Masters in International Policy and Development. She transitioned to global operations because of her conviction in the spirit of Namati and its people in order to support meaningful organizational development rooted in its core values. Before joining Namati, Jenna spent 5 years working in community-based nonprofits, serving various organizational roles that included program management and strategy, grants management, and fundraising. Jenna has found her way east after spending several years on the west coast of the United States and can usually be found exploring DC neighborhoods, hiking, working on her green thumb, or dancing (her choice styles are ballet, modern, and tap).
As a special committee undertakes to reform Sierra Leone’s constitution – which was established in 1991, just before the country’s decade-long war – Namati’s Sonkita Conteh makes six substantive recommendations to ensure that the new document “addresses the current realities of our nation”.
Amid chronic delays, excessive personal cost for jurors, and a growing lack of public confidence in the judiciary, Namati’s Sonkita Conteh suggests that “trial by jury should be excised from our current criminal process” in Sierra Leone.
As encroachment onto community lands increases in the Lango region of Uganda, communities are organizing to revitalize their traditional land governance systems. Central to these efforts is a process of recording and debating previously undocumented community land management rules. In this Lessons from the Field brief, Namati partner the Land and Equity Movement in Uganda (LEMU) shares insights into how staff facilitate and support the community-driven rules-writing process.
The latest edition of Justice Initiatives explores the nature of legal empowerment and its impact in various forms. With an introduction by George Soros, the book includes essays from Namati staff and Network Guidance Committee members, among others.
Forward
Legal Empowerment, Justice, and Development – George Soros
Preface
Why Support Legal Empowerment – Justine Greening MP
Introduction
Legal Empowerment’s Approaches and Importance – Stephen Golub
Case Studies
“You place the Old Mat with the New Mat”: Legal Empowerment, Equitable Dispute Resolution, and Social Cohesion in Post-Conflict Liberia – Peter Chapman and Chelsea Payne
Within and Around the law: Paralegals and Legal Empowerment in Indonesia – Ward Berenschot and Taufik Rinaldi
Legal Empowerment for the Protection of Community Land Rights: Findings from the Community Land Titling Initiative, 2009-11 – Rachael Knight
Legal Empowerment and the Administrative State: A Map of the Landscape, and Three Emerging Insights –Vivek Maru and Abigail Moy
The Legal Empowerment for Women and Disadvantaged Groups Program: Innovations in Project Design, Monitoring, and Evaluation – Debra Ladner and Kim McQuay
Transparency International’s Advocacy and Legal Advice Centers: Citizen Empowerment against Corruption – Conrad Zellmann
Legal Aid Approaches in South Africa and their Impact on Poverty Reduction and Service Delivery – David McQuoid Mason
Sustaining the Process of Legal Empowerment – Robin Nielsen