Most of the world’s poor live outside the ambit of the law and their poverty is both a cause and consequence of their lack of effective legal rights. This chapter argues that addressing the issue of legal empowerment is both smart politics and good economics. It presents a framework of legal empowerment based on 1) access to justice and the rule of law; 2) property rights; 3) labour rights; and 4) business rights.
Because the poor are often excluded from the formal economy, or because formal institutions are dysfunctional or corrupt, they devise ‘informal’ means of doing things that blend customary practice with modern ingenuity. Informal institutions can expose the poor – especially women and vulnerable groups – to corruption, exploitation, bureaucratic meddling, brutal forms of ‘justice’, and criminals.
Legal empowerment is the process through which the poor become protected and are enabled to use the law to advance their rights and their interests in relation to the state and the market. It is a country and context-specific approach that takes place at both the national and local levels. The legal empowerment agenda aims to incorporate the best practices of informal systems into the formal legal system, and to reform existing formal institutions to make them open, accessible and legitimate.
Poor people who are legally empowered will have increased voice and identity. They will have more influence on institutional and legal reforms and social policies, which, in turn, will improve the realisation of their rights as citizens, asset holders, workers and business people. The goals of legal empowerment are:
- expanding protection and opportunity for all;
- protecting poor people from injustices, such as wrongful eviction, expropriation, extortion and exploitation; and
- ensuring that the poor have equal opportunities to access local, national and international markets.
The legal empowerment framework has four pillars: access to justice and the rule of law, property rights, labour rights and business rights.
- Access to justice and the rule of law: The poor may be unable to access the justice system due to a lack of formal identity or of knowledge about the system, illiteracy, or lack of legal services available to them. Laws that affect the poor are often unclear, contradictory, outdated or discriminatory in their impact. Access to formally documented legal identity and the existence of functioning mechanisms for implementing rights are key to providing access to justice for the poor.
- Property rights: Secure and accessible property rights provide a sense of identity, dignity, and belonging. They create reliable ties of rights and obligations within a community and a system of mutual recognition of rights and responsibilities beyond it. Functional property rights are associated with stable growth and social contracts.
- Labour rights: A well-designed system of labour rights should provide both protection and opportunity. Recognition and enforcement of the rights of individual workers and their organisations is critical for breaking the cycle of poverty.
- Business rights: When laws regulating small businesses are unfairly drafted, implemented, or enforced, or simply too weak and inefficient, they leave the poor little option but to trade in the informal economy. Ensuring rights to vend, to have a workspace and related infrastructure and services would facilitate the success of small and medium enterprises and be an invaluable step towards poverty reduction.
