The realisation of human rights requires universal access to basic justice services. The institution of the paralegal is a powerful method for providing such services, combining legal knowledge with the creative, flexible tools of social movements. This essay, published in The Yale Journal of International Law, details the experiences of an experimental community-based paralegal program in Sierra Leone. It argues that paralegals can provide the requisite engagement with contextual social and legal particularities to help bridge the gap between law and society.
Sierra Leone is characterised by a corrupt and patrimonial state, historic violence and a failed social infrastructure. It operates a dualist legal structure of formal and customary law. Customary legal systems, which bar lawyers from practising, are of more practical relevance for the majority.
Paralegals are lay people with legal training who help the poor and disempowered to remedy breaches of their fundamental human rights and freedoms, bridging the gap between formal and customary law. Timap for Justice is a community-based paralegal program operating at chiefdom level. It assists in individual and community cases, thereby empowering contributions to the process of legal reform from below. The program’s paralegals were recruited from local chiefdoms, and employ a range of methods to solve clients’ problems. The program’s key features include:
- Straddling the dualist legal system, engaging both customary and formal institutions and helping clients navigate between them.
- Mediation (facilitating the voluntary settlement of disputes) is used frequently as a powerful tool which resonates with customary law’s emphasis on reconciliation.
- Litigation, or the threat of it, is employed when other methods fail.
- Demystifying the law through education, and proving that law and government can be made to serve ordinary people.
- In addition to building bridges between marginal communities and the formal system, engaging in internal justice development within the community.
Paralegals are not simply cost-effective substitutes for lawyers – their close community engagement, flexible working methods and ability to operate in both formal and customary institutions makes them an important complement to formal legal aid. Globally, a range of paralegal programs employ training, education and advocacy to solve people’s justice problems. There are a number of issues that need to be considered in the design of such programs – these relate to training, remuneration, relationship to government, and funding:
- Standards to determine who is qualified to work as a paralegal could include exams and certification, or requiring a minimum number of hours under the supervision of lawyers.
- Remuneration is recommended, although effective voluntary paralegal programmes do exist.
- Donor support for paralegals should maintain local autonomy by primarily operating as funding foundations rather than implementers. Further supporting methods include facilitating experience-sharing and evaluating and documenting paralegal work.
- Linking paralegal programs to the goals of democracy and human rights would underscore the need to extend basic justice services globally to every village and town.
- State recognition can bolster the legitimacy of paralegal efforts, and has been granted in a few countries. At the same time, it is important for paralegal programs to maintain enough autonomy from government to be able to challenge state wrongdoing and hold government accountable.
