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 Home » Constitution Design » Questions for constitution makers in Nepal » Legal System » Access to Justice

What is Access?


Accessibility of the justice system involves a number of issues. These include:
  • physical accessibility, which means that
    • the court should not be geographically too remote
    • courts should provide access for people with disabilities (how many courts are like those in the Fiji Islands? A Judge from that country said
    • "I have been present in a court where the witness was a man in a wheelchair. Because of the number of steps to the courtroom, and inside it, the man had to be carried into the witness box. I believe that the justice system lost some of its own dignity during that incident." - Hon. Madam Justice Nazhat Shameem, in a colloquium on Access to Justice in a Changing World held in Fiji Islands in 2004)
  • financial accessibility - in terms of court fees and cost of lawyers
  • accessibility in terms of language
  • accessibility in terms of user-friendliness - this can include having procedures which are not too complex, and also having alternative means of dispute resolution, such as arbitration and mediation.

The last point means that there should be facilities for the public like waiting rooms, toilets and information desks. Efforts should be made to that people understand the system. It also should not be too slow. Making rules of procedure simpler - especially for cases involving less privileged members of society - is another way of making the courts more accessible. And in some countries new types of courts have been set up. These may be official courts, but with simpler procedures. They may be traditional tribunals, perhaps with some form of state support of supervisions, And the may be non-court methods of deciding disputes, such as mediation.

For further material on some of these topics, click for
For websites of organisations with a particular interest in access to justice, see:

Access to Justice Network (Canada)

You can find standards and benchmarks were developed for use by Local Courts (summary first instance courts) in the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW) derived from those developed by the US National Center for State Courts (NCSC) Trial Court Performance Standards, including those on access to justice (this on the website of the University of Wollongong. One aspect of these is access of indigenous Australians to the courts.

Legal Resources Centre (South Africa)
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