Women property rights still remain a big obstacle in the gender equality and women’s rights programming due lack of legal awareness and access to justice. Poverty and illiteracy are the contributing factors in the community i serve being an urban informal settlement. Legal empowerment have not focused much of women property rights and gender equality as enshrined in our constitution but have focus on GBV response, prevention and awareness which have actually reduced tremendously. Use of community dialogue forums, town hall discussions and involvement of religious sector can make things work for our case here in Kenya
Thanks for sharing, Vincent. It’s interesting to hear tools/ways on community engagement – dialogue forums, town hall discussions, etc. I was wondering how easy it is in Kenya to organize those engagements? In the Philippines, we have governance at the district level (barangay), but these smallest units of governance in our country is sometimes caught in the middle of competing priorities.
Additionally, the various forums highlight how tradition and culture have placed women as second-class citizens, thereby deprivation women of owning property. This takes away their dignity, and as mentioned, no one will question the right to dignity for another person.
I think legal empowerment is important because, people and communities facing injustice need to know the law and use it to fight for their right in order to make life better for themselves and their community. They also need to be informed about the process of using the law and that they will only get their right is they are not tired of fighting for it.
I think legal empowerment is important because, people and communities facing injustice need to know the law and use it to fight for their right in order to make life better for themselves and their community. They also need to be informed about the process of using the law and that they will only get their right is they are not tired of fighting for it.
What would it look like to use a legal empowerment approach to address the injustice in your community?
It would include people with knowledge about the law working with disadvantage communities and persons who rights are violated in total disregard to the application of due process met to guaranteed justice for all, as enshrine under the rule of law. That said, my organization the Citizens Bureau for Development and Productivity is addressing the injustices in my community by way of two complimenting projects that promote the concept of Legal Empowerment, which are highlighted, “Community Justice Teams” and “Detainees Justice Action Collab”. We initiate these projects, given the current atmosphere in the dispensation of justice across the country with the overarching goal to underpin justice for better service delivery through formal and informal justice sectors collaboration.
A. “Community Justice Teams”
Legitimacy and affordability are major challenges confronting the formal justice system in Liberia. When citizens are aggrieved and then confronted with legal challenges, such as extensive bureaucratic red- tape and unseen additional costs including transportation, legal fees, and the opportunity costs of foregone work, they are often deprived of justice. The current justice system remains both physically and financially inaccessible to many.
In response to growing public demand for free and fair redress, we created the Community Justice Teams project (CJTs) in partnership with Accountability Lab and other Civil Society Organizations. The CJT project supports citizens in four (4) densely populated communities in three (3) counties: West Point and Logan Town in Montserrado County; Bassa Community in Kakata, Margibi County; and Demieta/Kokoyah Road in Gbarnga, Bong County.
Within each community, we recruited, trained, and supported groups of citizens as community mediators. These mediators, led by a team manager who is also a resident within the community, work with citizens to resolve disputes within the jurisdiction of their mandate and were carefully selected to represent their communities’ demographics. The CJTs are trained mediators facilitating the resolution of minor disputes that do not need to go through the formal justice system. For cases outside of their jurisdiction, mediators support citizens in referring their cases to the formal legal system.
Town criers and community radio awareness programs regularly remind community members and local residents about CJT services. Ensuring social accountability from the bottom-up, CJT mediators work with the concerned parties to resolve disputes alongside their community – which helps to monitor the outcome. CJTs play an important role in bridging the gap between informal resolution mechanisms at the community level – which can often turn violent – and the formal justice system – which is perceived as inaccessible to many.
B. “Detainees Justice Action Collab”
About 1230 out of approximately 2572 prisoners nationwide are found in Monrovia Central Prison originally build for 374 detainees, according to the Bureau of Correction and Rehabilitation. Resultantly, overcrowding required that prisoners sleep in shifts. Of the 2572 detainees, over 67.6% are pretrial detainees. We want to construct a data base to independently document pretrial detainees at the Monrovia Central Prison; to determine why and how long they have being prisoned to advance evidence base advocacy with the relevant government authorities against arbitrary detention. By so doing, to advocate for the release of pretrial detainees whose offense when adjudicated and sentenced who have met spending not more than 3, 6 or 12 months in jail for example, instead, are languishing behind bars for over 12 months or more without any prospects of being accorded the due process of law.
Everyone deserves a fair trial by facing their accuser in a competent court of jurisdiction. The government did not always observe these prohibition and rights. Police officers and magistrates frequently detained citizens for owing money to a complainant. The Independent National Commission on Human Rights (INCHR) reported, magistrate court judges continue to issue writs of arrest unilaterally without approval or submission of the city solicitors.
Through a catalytic grant support intended to buttress government efforts to attain the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, which my organization have won and for which we have engaged the Ministry of Justice, we have as part of our implementation strategy to collaborate with defense lawyers from the Judicial branch of government to use the law in addressing the alarming rate of pre-trial detainees thus playing a major role for the rule of law accountability. With this effort, we will work towards reducing the number of pretrial detainees, promote system change while enhancing capacity by buttressing government efforts to serve its citizens better in the administration of justice because establishing guilt before being sentenced is a constitutional requirement that must be upheld.
I have came to understand that legal empowerment provides a bridge between the law and the real life situation encountered by the disadvantaged and marginalized members of the community. It is a departure from the traditional way things were done were “victims” required expert services (relationship between lawyers and clients). Legal empowerment provides a unique way of bringing the law to the grass roots/people, in an attempt to solve challenges together with the people instead for them (“saviors”), empower or equip the individual and community to tackle their future challenges by themselves, using the knowledge shared. Thus the community takes part in the process of addressing systemic injustice and holding the duty bears into account and changing laws and policies.
Legal empowerment seeks to enable the marginalized and disadvantage individuals and communities to challenge injustice. It focuses on the ordinary peoples experiences of the law and injustice. Legal empowerment encourages community based solution for a particular community, it discourages imposition of solutions and ideas.
The challenge of statelessness faced by migrant worker’s descendant’s may be solved through legal empowerment. In the case of Zimbabwe in spite of 42 years of black majority rule many people find themselves ignorant of what the law provides but only come to understand it when faced with harsh penalties it imposes This makes it easy for the duty bearers to violate their rights. As the Legal Resources Foundation we are taking the law down to the grass root in an attempt to decrypt the law and simplify it to a layman’s appreciation through the lawyer and paralegals. The stateless individuals need to be empowered with the specific laws that protect their rights as citizens (Constitution in particular) and also to change laws within the Registrars office that discriminate them unfairly (which have not been aligned with the Constitution due to bureaucracy and lack of will by the current government) and rendering them stateless. There is a great opportunity to combine the power of the people with the power of the law in bring an end to statelessness of citizens
Thank you for sharing, Given. It’s great to hear Legal Resources Foundation’s work. I was wondering how specifically does your organization decrypts legislation? Is it geared more towards capacity building or otherwise? Asking because there are similar organizations that do this type of work and the methodologies sometimes vary. Would be interesting to hear how this works in your context.
The Legal Resources Foundation conducts capacity building trainings (under what we call Legal education or trainings) at community level and we also train local leaders such as chiefs on how to operate local courts. We also distribute pamphlets that are in local languages and created what we call Information centers were community paralegal (who have been trained and are in communication constantly with lawyers) keep pamphlets where communities come and read or borrow reading materials
legal empowerment is an important demand-side measure to address deficits in the rule of law. It involves extending legal provisions to the poor and encouraging them to be more active in claiming their rights. Legal empowerment initiatives enable citizens to actively use the law and shape it according to their needs.
Land rights have come to a critical issue in communities, It is the classic age-old battle of local communities versus a large agribusiness. A thousand families in Chilonga, one of the country’s poorest areas, are about to lose their ancestral land to a project that officials say is key to rebuilding Zimbabwe’s dairy industry.
The government has ordered evictions from the Chilonga area of Chiredzi to make way for a large Lucerne grass project to be run by Dendairy, one of the country’s biggest dairy firms, according to a new government notice. They want to evict the thousands of residents without agreement with the community
I noticed that legal empowerment is the key to fighting injustice in my community, Land rights have come to a critical issue in communities, We have the case of Chilonga Village in Zimbabwe. It is the classic age-old battle of local communities versus a large agribusiness. A thousand families in Chilonga, one of the country’s poorest areas, are about to lose their ancestral land to a project that officials say is key to rebuilding Zimbabwe’s dairy industry.
The government has ordered evictions from the Chilonga area of Chiredzi to make way for a large Lucerne grass project to be run by Dendairy, one of the country’s biggest dairy firms, according to a new government notice. They want to evict the thousands of residents without agreement with the community. Legal empowerment is the way to go to ensure that citizens claim their land rights
Traditionally,women and girls do not have a right to own or share property let it be at their parents side or husbands’ side although the 1995 ugandan constitution states that every person has a right to property including women and girls. So for me legal empowerment is building the capacity of citizens in legal awareness and practice to guarantee them power of activism and advocacy to claim the lost rights and freedom. Women will understand land law and land rights and this will completely reduce gender based violence, stepping on women and girls and they will be treated and respected as equal to the other gender
Legal empowerment flows from the constitutional guarantee of equality before the law. Where there is inequality in access to justice, the power of the people comes into play to change the status as we saw in South Africa’s apartheid era and the Marcos era in the Phillipines.
Earlier I posted about the situation of vulnerable women who are subject to domestic or sexual abuse but unable to raise a voice due to the threat of being harmed or getting separated from their husband/ partner and kids or afraid of social shame and continue to suffer in the same situation. I believe legal empowerment will help them to resolve such problems if paralegal or case workers in the community can explain them of their rights and also help them in other ways such as by arranging counselling , arrange for a talk from lawyers to make them understand of their basic human rights which may give them a spark to stop suffering and approach judiciary against their husband/ partners. If someone from the community will take this approach it might help others. Though I stay in Hong Kong but have grown up in India, where also I have seen this kind of similar situation. But in India now I see the situation changing very gradually where women are getting aware of their rights and various NGO’s try to help them to advocate for themselves and try to help them for getting access to Justice through legal means. Legal empowerment is a very important tool in my opinion and the paralegals or legal case workers could stand in a bridge between legal system and the ordinary people to help vulnerable and marginalized communities to live the life with dignity.
Legal empowerment can be used in so many different ways in my community. When talking about indigenous rights, LBTQIA+ community, communities affected by men-led disasters. In terms of my work, and how it can be impacted by Legal empowerment, working with GBV leads me to have great conversations with communities struggling to prevent femicide. However, most of the times, these individuals dont have an answer on what do to. I believe legal empowerment can be an incredible tool on teaching communities globally on their rights, and how to speak up against GBV.
I previously mentioned the gap between the justice sector and rights of disabled people in the society. They encounter numerous barriers to justice, such as the injustice inflicted on them by the very societies they live in, as well as an unawareness of their own rights. I believe that legal empowerment would make a significant difference in the situation because it would not only allow them to be part of the change through awareness of their rights, participate in the review, modification, and drafting of laws concerning them, but also bring about change to the legal framework. It would also educate them and the society they live in on their rights of disabled people. I am convinced that this would minimize injustice against disabled persons.
As mentioned the injustice that I have witnessed and that still occurs is the refusal of African governments to register and acknowledge LGBTIQ+ organisations. The criminalisation of SOGIEESC groups deprives LGBTIQ+ people of protection from violence, and harassment, access to safe and friendly healthcare services and involvement in civic and national agendas.
Combining the people’s power with the law’s power has a significant impact! Using paralegals to address this injustice would assist a lot; firstly, paralegals would organise and conduct several legal empowerment training with the LGBTIQ+ community on their rights and what the constitution states concerning fundamental freedoms of association, assembly and expression – this will result in communities understanding the law. With the empowerment of communities comes a strong and united voice and power to address the injustices. In understanding the injustices towards LGBTIQ+ people and organisations, communities would be able to document such atrocities and the negative socioeconomic and political impact exclusion has on their daily lives. Paralegals would help collect human rights violation cases, record pictures and videos, and conduct surveys, all to gather evidence and build a strong case for the need to recognise LGBTIQ+ organisations and beings. With the understanding of the law and evidence collected, the paralegals and the community will drive the advocacy work and challenge the laws that criminalise and prohibit them from organising formally.
Young people in Malawi need to know and understand their rights to economic empowerment and fight for their rights, by demanding equal opportunities and by standing up against oppression where they are either oppressed in the employment systems or even on commercial markets to bring an evolution from having a larger population of the country( the youth) highly dependable but have a population that has economic independence and is also productive and this is a big struggle in the country that paralegals or civil society organization need to briefly highlight and take up
Legal empowerment allows poor people to be protected and enabled to use the law to advance their rights and their interests as citizens. It also recognizes that every individual must have access to justice, including due process, justice and remedies and that action must be taken to eliminate discrimination.
Zimbabwean women particularly rural women have a challenge accessing land. It is important to note that land is one resource that people in rural areas cannot do without. They rely on land for the food, shelter and all forms of life. For a very long-time women in Zimbabwe were considered perpetual minor which meant women had to get consent of their husband’s to open bank accounts, to institute legal proceedings, purchase property and signing or consenting to any legally binding document. In December 1982 Zimbabwe passed the Legal Age of Majority Act which gave women in Zimbabwe majority status and like and other laws, this law did not cascade down to the community let alone the rural areas. this therefore meant that the repressive practice of treating women like minors has perpetuated even after the promulgation of the Act.
The concept of Legal Empowerment is about combing the power of the people with the power of the law to enable communities to fight for their rights and have their rights fulfilled and realised. Taking the law to the people and explain how the law can be used to uplift people and the case of our scenarios where prior the law maintained perpetual minority for woman but was however changed and also Zimbabwe adopted a constitution founded on principle of equality and non-discrimination, this has potential to uplift woman bring about gender parity in development and access to land.
there are a number of parallels and particularly of people in authority intentionally delaying their citizens or communities their rights or genuinely due to lack of knowledge. Through legal empowerment communities are able to demand right from duty-bearers and refuse practices that are unconstitutional or not based on the law. once communities where empowered women were able to demand access to land and even to be allocated in their own names. Where their traditional leader has refused they were able to appeal the decision or protest against the decision, which lead to a number of women being allocated land in their right.
Thank you for sharing this, Amanda. This reminds me of 2 newly passed laws in Sierra Leone – these laws were progressive in a sense that it guarantees women’s equal rights and access to land. If you’d like to check the laws, it’s available in our Resource Library here and here. Ofcourse, the implementation of these laws will be key in realizing women’s rights.
In the Mano River Union, Liberia included, we have seen examples from Sierra Leone where communities have repelled. We can see this as an example to note and with ongoing work by organizations who are using the law and alternative actions to knowing, using, and shaping the law, injustices against women, in particular, are being addressed.
For me, my organization has seen a window of opportunity to first build citizens that are informed and can drive their informed minds to proper, quality participation in issues that affect them.
Today, many actions have helped in Liberia that contributed to Community Land Rights (Liberia Land Rights Law 2018), Community Forests Law (2009), and many others.
In fact, these laws have seen communities receiving benefits from their land forests resources. Their biggest challenge is:
1. Their local leaders know how to use tradition and human rights in the discharge of justice
2. Communities planning their development on the incomes they benefit
3. Communities learning how to settle the dispute
We face the challenge of People arbitrarily arrested on tramped up cases for the sake of land grabbing by the most powerful of our society.
The Communities on the other hand are so divided based on faith, politics, clans, wealth status, education status, among others.
The first paralegals also concentrated n child protection and women rights only.
There is need to expand to land and land rights of indigenous communities, advocacy to increase recognition of the Customary land tenure in Eastern Uganda and the massive mobilization and training of the illiterate communities to unite against the common enemy against their ancestrally inherited land.
Thank you for sharing, Martin. Agree with you, power imbalance is apparent in many land grabbing cases. In case you wanted to expound on this case/point, Lesson 3 is available for you to access here.
Legal empowerment is grounded on constitutional right of being equal before the law and not being discriminated. Legal empowerment comes to solve people’s daily problems of injustice resulted from the violation of the aforementioned guarantees. Enhancing it in our community will continue to enable people especially those who found in rural communities and indigent persons to know and actively fight for their rights while accessing justice and legal services, and effectively resolve their disputes.
Thank you Hector and Tshenolo for your sharing-knowledge to us. Actually, I will ask about basic question about paralegal, empowerment and legal empowerment. This question can be answered by my friends here as well.
I reflected from Hector statement about legal empowerment organization. However, Hector didn’t explain more about criteria or indicator who organization can be described as legal empowerment organization. For example, can we define legal aid organization as legal empowerment organization if the legal aid organization does empower to community? This question will relate to how I understand legal empowerment work in the organization level.
Hi Mas Aditia, thank you for taking this course! For me – yes, as long as the legal empowerment approach centers communities and peoples. It’s certainly a very wide criteria – but I think it’s good to not have a fixed one, so we (as legal empowerment advocates) can find threads with ‘other’ legal empowerment approaches too. That’s what I think! 🙂
Hope you continue to pose more questions like this in Lessons 3 and 4!
People hold an unimaginable amount of power, especially when they are together, fighting for one cause. The recent history of Sri Lanka gives evidence on people expressing and acting upon their opinions, demanding their civil and political rights. Legal empowerment has strengthen their fights and influenced their success.
Lack of awareness on own rights and liberties allow the persons in power to cause more harm to the communities. Therefore, civic mobilization and awareness raising play an important part of the fight for justice.
The injustice I mentioned earlier in relation to expropriation in the public interest is that expropriating entities oftentimes do not follow procedures provided for by the law, at the detriment of landowners’ rights because the majority of citizens are unaware of said provisions and are hence taken advantage of. When people know and understand the legal provisions in place for their protection, they will be confident in standing up for themselves against violations of their rights. With regard to poor enforcement of expropriation procedures provided by the law, the few people who knew their rights asserted them and experienced a favourable outcome. This kind of legal education can be done through community awareness campaigns, community radios, community-based paralegals, etc
I think legal empowerment is important because, people and communities facing injustice need to know the law and use it to fight for their right in order to make life better for themselves and their community. They also need to be informed about the process of using the law and that they will only get their right is they are not tired of fighting for it.
Concerning with Myanmar (Burma), legal empowerment is very much needed in the post-military dictatorship period. Currently, it is not impossible to carry out the legal empowerment process as even the advocates and lawyers themselves who are advocating for the political prisoners as well as detainees, are arbitrarily arrested by the military junta. When the civilian government regains the people power back from the military junta, there would be so many human rights, land rights abuse cases that the legal empowerment has to solve in various ways.
A banana plantation started its operations in a village in Southern Bukidnon, Philippines, despite the lack of complete documents (i.e., Environmental Compliance Certificate) and lack of consent from the Indigenous community. Community members themselves are being proactive in learning more about and using pertinent laws to support their claim over their ancestral land and their resistance against the banana company to operate in their area. Despite this, there is still a lot of push back from the company, and there is not much support/action from the concerned government agencies. At the moment, there is a need for the community to enhance their knowledge of relevant laws and how to use these by seeking support/guidance from legal practitioners.
Many people who are incarcerated lack the resources and knowledges to demand for justice. Legal empowerment in my community would equip incarcerated people who are living in the prison system with the tools to advocate on behalf of themselves and their fellow inmates.
Women property rights still remain a big obstacle in the gender equality and women’s rights programming due lack of legal awareness and access to justice. Poverty and illiteracy are the contributing factors in the community i serve being an urban informal settlement. Legal empowerment have not focused much of women property rights and gender equality as enshrined in our constitution but have focus on GBV response, prevention and awareness which have actually reduced tremendously. Use of community dialogue forums, town hall discussions and involvement of religious sector can make things work for our case here in Kenya
Thanks for sharing, Vincent. It’s interesting to hear tools/ways on community engagement – dialogue forums, town hall discussions, etc. I was wondering how easy it is in Kenya to organize those engagements? In the Philippines, we have governance at the district level (barangay), but these smallest units of governance in our country is sometimes caught in the middle of competing priorities.
Additionally, the various forums highlight how tradition and culture have placed women as second-class citizens, thereby deprivation women of owning property. This takes away their dignity, and as mentioned, no one will question the right to dignity for another person.
I think legal empowerment is important because, people and communities facing injustice need to know the law and use it to fight for their right in order to make life better for themselves and their community. They also need to be informed about the process of using the law and that they will only get their right is they are not tired of fighting for it.
Agree with you, Ismaila! Definitely, in some instances, the law is very far from people who need it the most.
I think legal empowerment is important because, people and communities facing injustice need to know the law and use it to fight for their right in order to make life better for themselves and their community. They also need to be informed about the process of using the law and that they will only get their right is they are not tired of fighting for it.
What would it look like to use a legal empowerment approach to address the injustice in your community?
It would include people with knowledge about the law working with disadvantage communities and persons who rights are violated in total disregard to the application of due process met to guaranteed justice for all, as enshrine under the rule of law. That said, my organization the Citizens Bureau for Development and Productivity is addressing the injustices in my community by way of two complimenting projects that promote the concept of Legal Empowerment, which are highlighted, “Community Justice Teams” and “Detainees Justice Action Collab”. We initiate these projects, given the current atmosphere in the dispensation of justice across the country with the overarching goal to underpin justice for better service delivery through formal and informal justice sectors collaboration.
A. “Community Justice Teams”
Legitimacy and affordability are major challenges confronting the formal justice system in Liberia. When citizens are aggrieved and then confronted with legal challenges, such as extensive bureaucratic red- tape and unseen additional costs including transportation, legal fees, and the opportunity costs of foregone work, they are often deprived of justice. The current justice system remains both physically and financially inaccessible to many.
In response to growing public demand for free and fair redress, we created the Community Justice Teams project (CJTs) in partnership with Accountability Lab and other Civil Society Organizations. The CJT project supports citizens in four (4) densely populated communities in three (3) counties: West Point and Logan Town in Montserrado County; Bassa Community in Kakata, Margibi County; and Demieta/Kokoyah Road in Gbarnga, Bong County.
Within each community, we recruited, trained, and supported groups of citizens as community mediators. These mediators, led by a team manager who is also a resident within the community, work with citizens to resolve disputes within the jurisdiction of their mandate and were carefully selected to represent their communities’ demographics. The CJTs are trained mediators facilitating the resolution of minor disputes that do not need to go through the formal justice system. For cases outside of their jurisdiction, mediators support citizens in referring their cases to the formal legal system.
Town criers and community radio awareness programs regularly remind community members and local residents about CJT services. Ensuring social accountability from the bottom-up, CJT mediators work with the concerned parties to resolve disputes alongside their community – which helps to monitor the outcome. CJTs play an important role in bridging the gap between informal resolution mechanisms at the community level – which can often turn violent – and the formal justice system – which is perceived as inaccessible to many.
B. “Detainees Justice Action Collab”
About 1230 out of approximately 2572 prisoners nationwide are found in Monrovia Central Prison originally build for 374 detainees, according to the Bureau of Correction and Rehabilitation. Resultantly, overcrowding required that prisoners sleep in shifts. Of the 2572 detainees, over 67.6% are pretrial detainees. We want to construct a data base to independently document pretrial detainees at the Monrovia Central Prison; to determine why and how long they have being prisoned to advance evidence base advocacy with the relevant government authorities against arbitrary detention. By so doing, to advocate for the release of pretrial detainees whose offense when adjudicated and sentenced who have met spending not more than 3, 6 or 12 months in jail for example, instead, are languishing behind bars for over 12 months or more without any prospects of being accorded the due process of law.
Everyone deserves a fair trial by facing their accuser in a competent court of jurisdiction. The government did not always observe these prohibition and rights. Police officers and magistrates frequently detained citizens for owing money to a complainant. The Independent National Commission on Human Rights (INCHR) reported, magistrate court judges continue to issue writs of arrest unilaterally without approval or submission of the city solicitors.
Through a catalytic grant support intended to buttress government efforts to attain the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, which my organization have won and for which we have engaged the Ministry of Justice, we have as part of our implementation strategy to collaborate with defense lawyers from the Judicial branch of government to use the law in addressing the alarming rate of pre-trial detainees thus playing a major role for the rule of law accountability. With this effort, we will work towards reducing the number of pretrial detainees, promote system change while enhancing capacity by buttressing government efforts to serve its citizens better in the administration of justice because establishing guilt before being sentenced is a constitutional requirement that must be upheld.
I have came to understand that legal empowerment provides a bridge between the law and the real life situation encountered by the disadvantaged and marginalized members of the community. It is a departure from the traditional way things were done were “victims” required expert services (relationship between lawyers and clients). Legal empowerment provides a unique way of bringing the law to the grass roots/people, in an attempt to solve challenges together with the people instead for them (“saviors”), empower or equip the individual and community to tackle their future challenges by themselves, using the knowledge shared. Thus the community takes part in the process of addressing systemic injustice and holding the duty bears into account and changing laws and policies.
Legal empowerment seeks to enable the marginalized and disadvantage individuals and communities to challenge injustice. It focuses on the ordinary peoples experiences of the law and injustice. Legal empowerment encourages community based solution for a particular community, it discourages imposition of solutions and ideas.
The challenge of statelessness faced by migrant worker’s descendant’s may be solved through legal empowerment. In the case of Zimbabwe in spite of 42 years of black majority rule many people find themselves ignorant of what the law provides but only come to understand it when faced with harsh penalties it imposes This makes it easy for the duty bearers to violate their rights. As the Legal Resources Foundation we are taking the law down to the grass root in an attempt to decrypt the law and simplify it to a layman’s appreciation through the lawyer and paralegals. The stateless individuals need to be empowered with the specific laws that protect their rights as citizens (Constitution in particular) and also to change laws within the Registrars office that discriminate them unfairly (which have not been aligned with the Constitution due to bureaucracy and lack of will by the current government) and rendering them stateless. There is a great opportunity to combine the power of the people with the power of the law in bring an end to statelessness of citizens
Thank you for sharing, Given. It’s great to hear Legal Resources Foundation’s work. I was wondering how specifically does your organization decrypts legislation? Is it geared more towards capacity building or otherwise? Asking because there are similar organizations that do this type of work and the methodologies sometimes vary. Would be interesting to hear how this works in your context.
The Legal Resources Foundation conducts capacity building trainings (under what we call Legal education or trainings) at community level and we also train local leaders such as chiefs on how to operate local courts. We also distribute pamphlets that are in local languages and created what we call Information centers were community paralegal (who have been trained and are in communication constantly with lawyers) keep pamphlets where communities come and read or borrow reading materials
Thank you for the information – this helps. See you in the next lesson!
legal empowerment is an important demand-side measure to address deficits in the rule of law. It involves extending legal provisions to the poor and encouraging them to be more active in claiming their rights. Legal empowerment initiatives enable citizens to actively use the law and shape it according to their needs.
Land rights have come to a critical issue in communities, It is the classic age-old battle of local communities versus a large agribusiness. A thousand families in Chilonga, one of the country’s poorest areas, are about to lose their ancestral land to a project that officials say is key to rebuilding Zimbabwe’s dairy industry.
The government has ordered evictions from the Chilonga area of Chiredzi to make way for a large Lucerne grass project to be run by Dendairy, one of the country’s biggest dairy firms, according to a new government notice. They want to evict the thousands of residents without agreement with the community
I noticed that legal empowerment is the key to fighting injustice in my community, Land rights have come to a critical issue in communities, We have the case of Chilonga Village in Zimbabwe. It is the classic age-old battle of local communities versus a large agribusiness. A thousand families in Chilonga, one of the country’s poorest areas, are about to lose their ancestral land to a project that officials say is key to rebuilding Zimbabwe’s dairy industry.
The government has ordered evictions from the Chilonga area of Chiredzi to make way for a large Lucerne grass project to be run by Dendairy, one of the country’s biggest dairy firms, according to a new government notice. They want to evict the thousands of residents without agreement with the community. Legal empowerment is the way to go to ensure that citizens claim their land rights
Traditionally,women and girls do not have a right to own or share property let it be at their parents side or husbands’ side although the 1995 ugandan constitution states that every person has a right to property including women and girls. So for me legal empowerment is building the capacity of citizens in legal awareness and practice to guarantee them power of activism and advocacy to claim the lost rights and freedom. Women will understand land law and land rights and this will completely reduce gender based violence, stepping on women and girls and they will be treated and respected as equal to the other gender
Legal empowerment flows from the constitutional guarantee of equality before the law. Where there is inequality in access to justice, the power of the people comes into play to change the status as we saw in South Africa’s apartheid era and the Marcos era in the Phillipines.
Agree with you, Wellingtone – the power of the people and combining legal empowerment is a key feature.
Earlier I posted about the situation of vulnerable women who are subject to domestic or sexual abuse but unable to raise a voice due to the threat of being harmed or getting separated from their husband/ partner and kids or afraid of social shame and continue to suffer in the same situation. I believe legal empowerment will help them to resolve such problems if paralegal or case workers in the community can explain them of their rights and also help them in other ways such as by arranging counselling , arrange for a talk from lawyers to make them understand of their basic human rights which may give them a spark to stop suffering and approach judiciary against their husband/ partners. If someone from the community will take this approach it might help others. Though I stay in Hong Kong but have grown up in India, where also I have seen this kind of similar situation. But in India now I see the situation changing very gradually where women are getting aware of their rights and various NGO’s try to help them to advocate for themselves and try to help them for getting access to Justice through legal means. Legal empowerment is a very important tool in my opinion and the paralegals or legal case workers could stand in a bridge between legal system and the ordinary people to help vulnerable and marginalized communities to live the life with dignity.
Thank you for sharing this, Pritika. This is very relevant, as when NGOs empower community leaders, sometimes, they face reprisals for their work too.
Legal empowerment can be used in so many different ways in my community. When talking about indigenous rights, LBTQIA+ community, communities affected by men-led disasters. In terms of my work, and how it can be impacted by Legal empowerment, working with GBV leads me to have great conversations with communities struggling to prevent femicide. However, most of the times, these individuals dont have an answer on what do to. I believe legal empowerment can be an incredible tool on teaching communities globally on their rights, and how to speak up against GBV.
I previously mentioned the gap between the justice sector and rights of disabled people in the society. They encounter numerous barriers to justice, such as the injustice inflicted on them by the very societies they live in, as well as an unawareness of their own rights. I believe that legal empowerment would make a significant difference in the situation because it would not only allow them to be part of the change through awareness of their rights, participate in the review, modification, and drafting of laws concerning them, but also bring about change to the legal framework. It would also educate them and the society they live in on their rights of disabled people. I am convinced that this would minimize injustice against disabled persons.
As mentioned the injustice that I have witnessed and that still occurs is the refusal of African governments to register and acknowledge LGBTIQ+ organisations. The criminalisation of SOGIEESC groups deprives LGBTIQ+ people of protection from violence, and harassment, access to safe and friendly healthcare services and involvement in civic and national agendas.
Combining the people’s power with the law’s power has a significant impact! Using paralegals to address this injustice would assist a lot; firstly, paralegals would organise and conduct several legal empowerment training with the LGBTIQ+ community on their rights and what the constitution states concerning fundamental freedoms of association, assembly and expression – this will result in communities understanding the law. With the empowerment of communities comes a strong and united voice and power to address the injustices. In understanding the injustices towards LGBTIQ+ people and organisations, communities would be able to document such atrocities and the negative socioeconomic and political impact exclusion has on their daily lives. Paralegals would help collect human rights violation cases, record pictures and videos, and conduct surveys, all to gather evidence and build a strong case for the need to recognise LGBTIQ+ organisations and beings. With the understanding of the law and evidence collected, the paralegals and the community will drive the advocacy work and challenge the laws that criminalise and prohibit them from organising formally.
Young people in Malawi need to know and understand their rights to economic empowerment and fight for their rights, by demanding equal opportunities and by standing up against oppression where they are either oppressed in the employment systems or even on commercial markets to bring an evolution from having a larger population of the country( the youth) highly dependable but have a population that has economic independence and is also productive and this is a big struggle in the country that paralegals or civil society organization need to briefly highlight and take up
Legal empowerment allows poor people to be protected and enabled to use the law to advance their rights and their interests as citizens. It also recognizes that every individual must have access to justice, including due process, justice and remedies and that action must be taken to eliminate discrimination.
Agree with you! From recognition all the way to remedy, communities should be able to access these through the law.
Zimbabwean women particularly rural women have a challenge accessing land. It is important to note that land is one resource that people in rural areas cannot do without. They rely on land for the food, shelter and all forms of life. For a very long-time women in Zimbabwe were considered perpetual minor which meant women had to get consent of their husband’s to open bank accounts, to institute legal proceedings, purchase property and signing or consenting to any legally binding document. In December 1982 Zimbabwe passed the Legal Age of Majority Act which gave women in Zimbabwe majority status and like and other laws, this law did not cascade down to the community let alone the rural areas. this therefore meant that the repressive practice of treating women like minors has perpetuated even after the promulgation of the Act.
The concept of Legal Empowerment is about combing the power of the people with the power of the law to enable communities to fight for their rights and have their rights fulfilled and realised. Taking the law to the people and explain how the law can be used to uplift people and the case of our scenarios where prior the law maintained perpetual minority for woman but was however changed and also Zimbabwe adopted a constitution founded on principle of equality and non-discrimination, this has potential to uplift woman bring about gender parity in development and access to land.
there are a number of parallels and particularly of people in authority intentionally delaying their citizens or communities their rights or genuinely due to lack of knowledge. Through legal empowerment communities are able to demand right from duty-bearers and refuse practices that are unconstitutional or not based on the law. once communities where empowered women were able to demand access to land and even to be allocated in their own names. Where their traditional leader has refused they were able to appeal the decision or protest against the decision, which lead to a number of women being allocated land in their right.
Thank you for sharing this, Amanda. This reminds me of 2 newly passed laws in Sierra Leone – these laws were progressive in a sense that it guarantees women’s equal rights and access to land. If you’d like to check the laws, it’s available in our Resource Library here and here. Ofcourse, the implementation of these laws will be key in realizing women’s rights.
In the Mano River Union, Liberia included, we have seen examples from Sierra Leone where communities have repelled. We can see this as an example to note and with ongoing work by organizations who are using the law and alternative actions to knowing, using, and shaping the law, injustices against women, in particular, are being addressed.
For me, my organization has seen a window of opportunity to first build citizens that are informed and can drive their informed minds to proper, quality participation in issues that affect them.
Today, many actions have helped in Liberia that contributed to Community Land Rights (Liberia Land Rights Law 2018), Community Forests Law (2009), and many others.
In fact, these laws have seen communities receiving benefits from their land forests resources. Their biggest challenge is:
1. Their local leaders know how to use tradition and human rights in the discharge of justice
2. Communities planning their development on the incomes they benefit
3. Communities learning how to settle the dispute
We face the challenge of People arbitrarily arrested on tramped up cases for the sake of land grabbing by the most powerful of our society.
The Communities on the other hand are so divided based on faith, politics, clans, wealth status, education status, among others.
The first paralegals also concentrated n child protection and women rights only.
There is need to expand to land and land rights of indigenous communities, advocacy to increase recognition of the Customary land tenure in Eastern Uganda and the massive mobilization and training of the illiterate communities to unite against the common enemy against their ancestrally inherited land.
Thank you for sharing, Martin. Agree with you, power imbalance is apparent in many land grabbing cases. In case you wanted to expound on this case/point, Lesson 3 is available for you to access here.
Legal empowerment is grounded on constitutional right of being equal before the law and not being discriminated. Legal empowerment comes to solve people’s daily problems of injustice resulted from the violation of the aforementioned guarantees. Enhancing it in our community will continue to enable people especially those who found in rural communities and indigent persons to know and actively fight for their rights while accessing justice and legal services, and effectively resolve their disputes.
Thank you Hector and Tshenolo for your sharing-knowledge to us. Actually, I will ask about basic question about paralegal, empowerment and legal empowerment. This question can be answered by my friends here as well.
I reflected from Hector statement about legal empowerment organization. However, Hector didn’t explain more about criteria or indicator who organization can be described as legal empowerment organization. For example, can we define legal aid organization as legal empowerment organization if the legal aid organization does empower to community? This question will relate to how I understand legal empowerment work in the organization level.
Thank you for answering this questions, all!
Hi Mas Aditia, thank you for taking this course! For me – yes, as long as the legal empowerment approach centers communities and peoples. It’s certainly a very wide criteria – but I think it’s good to not have a fixed one, so we (as legal empowerment advocates) can find threads with ‘other’ legal empowerment approaches too. That’s what I think! 🙂
Hope you continue to pose more questions like this in Lessons 3 and 4!
People hold an unimaginable amount of power, especially when they are together, fighting for one cause. The recent history of Sri Lanka gives evidence on people expressing and acting upon their opinions, demanding their civil and political rights. Legal empowerment has strengthen their fights and influenced their success.
Lack of awareness on own rights and liberties allow the persons in power to cause more harm to the communities. Therefore, civic mobilization and awareness raising play an important part of the fight for justice.
The injustice I mentioned earlier in relation to expropriation in the public interest is that expropriating entities oftentimes do not follow procedures provided for by the law, at the detriment of landowners’ rights because the majority of citizens are unaware of said provisions and are hence taken advantage of. When people know and understand the legal provisions in place for their protection, they will be confident in standing up for themselves against violations of their rights. With regard to poor enforcement of expropriation procedures provided by the law, the few people who knew their rights asserted them and experienced a favourable outcome. This kind of legal education can be done through community awareness campaigns, community radios, community-based paralegals, etc
I think legal empowerment is important because, people and communities facing injustice need to know the law and use it to fight for their right in order to make life better for themselves and their community. They also need to be informed about the process of using the law and that they will only get their right is they are not tired of fighting for it.
Concerning with Myanmar (Burma), legal empowerment is very much needed in the post-military dictatorship period. Currently, it is not impossible to carry out the legal empowerment process as even the advocates and lawyers themselves who are advocating for the political prisoners as well as detainees, are arbitrarily arrested by the military junta. When the civilian government regains the people power back from the military junta, there would be so many human rights, land rights abuse cases that the legal empowerment has to solve in various ways.
A banana plantation started its operations in a village in Southern Bukidnon, Philippines, despite the lack of complete documents (i.e., Environmental Compliance Certificate) and lack of consent from the Indigenous community. Community members themselves are being proactive in learning more about and using pertinent laws to support their claim over their ancestral land and their resistance against the banana company to operate in their area. Despite this, there is still a lot of push back from the company, and there is not much support/action from the concerned government agencies. At the moment, there is a need for the community to enhance their knowledge of relevant laws and how to use these by seeking support/guidance from legal practitioners.
Many people who are incarcerated lack the resources and knowledges to demand for justice. Legal empowerment in my community would equip incarcerated people who are living in the prison system with the tools to advocate on behalf of themselves and their fellow inmates.