11:00 - 12:30 (CET)

Organizer: The Hague Institute for Innovation of Law (HiiL)

Bridging the access to justice gap requires a multi-stakeholder approach. To explore factors that contribute to scaling justice innovation, HiiL has identified seven categories of game-changing services that reimagine the way justice is delivered. They prioritize people’s needs and experiences and provide justice that is affordable, accessible, and easy to understand. To harness the operational understanding and measured impact of Game-changers, this side event will bring together international experts across sectors and geographies. It will build upon the critical success factors developed by HiiL in its recent set of Policy-Briefs and further the ongoing conversation on strengthening the enablers for making people-centered justice happen.

Language: English

During this session participants discussed the opportunities presented by the Voluntary National Reviews
and HLPF processes and examined some of the ways in which civil society justice practitioners can work
with governments to demonstrate successful examples of implementation as well as areas where more
action is needed. Discussants were asked to share information about their country’s Voluntary National
Review processes so that other participants could learn and exchange knowledge. Speakers highlighted the
importance of involving non-state actors in the process, improving collaboration between variety of actors
including legal advice offices, civil society, government, and other local and international actors in
implementing the targets, and improving financing to improve the effective implementation of SDG Goal
16. 

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Key tasks for these sessions will be to articulate the narrative regarding justice and its relationship to other outcomes to support future advocacy, developing strategies for promoting key messages and themes in important venues and communities, articulating metrics for measuring progress, and defining what success will look like. 

Sustainable funding for justice remains a critical challenge. In OECD countries public spending on justice
makes up just 5% of national budgets, and in most countries it is far lower. Donors spend little more than
1% of aid on justice. Social enterprise models are emerging to help fill the funding gap with creative
strategies to garner earned revenue to support access to justice initiatives. In this session, participants
learned from grassroots nonprofit and for-profit organizations on the frontlines of these innovations and
shared successful approaches, challenges, and opportunities. The session focused on both innovative
programming and social enterprise models. Innovative programming models include: client fees; pay-it
forward schemes; member dues; independent associations; crowdfunding; or charging for training or
consulting services. Social enterprise models can be entirely external to core work and mission (e.g. an
entirely separate business line, like a restaurant or equipment rental); integrated with core work (e.g.
services to higher income customers that use revenue to subsidize work with lower income clients); or
directly embedded (e.g. a membership model where clients directly pay for or help to subsidize services).

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The Open Government Partnership has become a major platform to push for more open, transparent,
participatory and responsive government. Increasingly, OGP is being used to advance reforms related to
access to justice, open justice, and goal 16 more broadly (including access to information, anti-corruption
and ensuring citizens have a voice in government decisions). Last year, 28 countries made commitments as
part of their OGP action plans. The session included presentations from Moldova, Indonesia, Macedonia,
and Argentina on how the countries are using OGP to advance access to justice. Recommendations from
the session include:

● Identify champions within government who are open to being allies on A2J issues and willing to use
the window of opportunity created by the OGP process;

● Link A2J agenda to other issue areas to make it relevant to other areas of social and economic
development, and to ensure that it can be sustained within other agendas;

● Link international commitments to local implementation and vice versa to ensure that high-level
commitments are felt by target communities, and to showcase the work that is already being done
at the national and sub-national level;

● Build a multi-country coalition on A2J commitments within the OGP; and

● Continue to push for justice commitments. 

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Finding relevant, case-specific, jurisdiction-accurate legal information online can be a challenge. Legal
information portals aim to change that. The Legal Navigator portal pilots in Alaska and Hawaii hope to
provide an exhaustive resource that helps a user ask, refine, learn, and connect as they navigate a legal
issue. The Legal Navigator has several features that support a non-expert seeking legal help. The
technology was built with a mobile-first approach, making the technology easy to use for individuals
seeking legal information on their cellphones. The Legal Navigator is an open-source tool, making the
technology accessible for future projects and any courts hoping to implement it. The session also explored
the assessment of the Navigator’s use, effectiveness, and cost through an evaluation framework. The
ultimate goal of the evaluation framework is to understand which pathways are most efficient and
effective. The session described the project from concept to pilot, discussed plans and enhancements for
future portal projects, and considered the challenges and opportunities of evaluating such efforts.
Ultimately, the opportunities the portal provides extend beyond the legal domain to the social services and
health fields. Collecting data on help seeking behavior for legal problems offers an opportunity to highlight
unmet needs that can drive public policy change more broadly.

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This roundtable discussion among pro bono providers and recipients highlighted best practices and lessons learned. Leveraging research conducted by the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the session highlighted several factors that contribute to increased pro bono participation within law firms, including the existence of a pro bono committee, a pro bono policy, and factoring pro bono into compensation. In creating a strong pro bono program, it was advised that firms create standards and expectations around pro bono, learn from other firms’ experiences, and be willing to refer cases to outside firms if the initial firm does not have the capacity or experience to take a particular case. Speakers also encouraged firms to use online tools, like iProbono, to match pro bono capacity with need, and they noted that to support SDG Goal 16 and Agenda 2030, an evaluative framework and criteria would be helpful in determining pro bono’s overall use, effectiveness, and impact. The session also highlighted that the world would not achieve justice for all through pro bono alone. Other methods of providing access to justice, such as the use of paralegals, play an important role in fulfilling the promise of SDG Goal 16.

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Early access to effective legal assistance for suspects and defendants is crucial for equal access to justice
and for the enjoyment of other rights and procedural safeguards in criminal justice systems. This session
explored the findings of studies in a range of countries about how far these countries have come and have
yet to go in securing certain rights for criminal suspects. It also showcased an innovative model
implemented in Ukraine that has reformed the custody intake procedure for the benefit of all. In this
reform, the Legal Aid Foundation developed a streamlined and easy to use Custody Records system,
instructions on avoiding human rights abuses, and created a prestigious position for a custody office to
oversee the system. This system helped to track suspects in detention electronically at every stage in the
process, much like tracking a package going through the postal service. Throughout the session, speakers
and participants discussed the importance of cultural change along with policy proposals to address the
problem of abuses in police custody. This includes preventing perverse incentives that would motivate
police to abuse suspects into confessions, but also to empower individuals to advocate for their rights while
in custody. It is also important to make police officers feel that protecting human rights is part of their work
as well, rather than fighting crime at all costs.   

Read the full summary for this working session.