"To Whom Do the People Take Their Issues?" The Contribution of Community-Based Paralegals to Access to Justice in South Africa

Dugard, Jackie ; Drage, Katherine

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: ABUSE;    ABUSES;    ACCESS TO INFORMATION;    ACCESS TO JUSTICE;    ACCOUNTABILITY;   

RP-ID  :  79339

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Paralegals provide a crucial link tojustice services and legal redress in South Africa,particularly for the rural poor. Although post-Apartheidconstitutional reforms guaranteed a broad range of rightsand benefits to all South Africans, including the right tolegal assistance, accessing many of these benefits remains achallenge for those who live in remote areas and those whocannot afford legal representation. Community-basedparalegals fill this gap by providing dispute resolution andlegal support that is both geographically and financiallyaccessible and informed by a deep understanding of thesocial issues and everyday challenges facing their clients.Despite the prevalence and importance of paralegals in theSouth African justice sector, their role remains largelyunder-formalized and understudied. This report seeks toaddress this gap by providing a broad analysis of thecurrent state of the paralegal sector. It begins with ahistorical overview of paralegal services in South Africafrom the apartheid period to the present. The study thenmaps the current state of the paralegal sector, and providesdetailed information on the structure and function of keyorganizations that provide paralegal services. Through ananalysis of twelve case studies of paralegal-assisted cases,the report identifies facilitating and hinderingdeterminants of Community Advice Offices (CAO) functions atboth the institutional and organization level.