Access to Justice

In securing access to justice, particularly for those who are less advantaged, the Network will foster collaboration to:

*Extend the fundamental right to legal identity (registered at birth)

*Repeal or modify laws and regulations that are biased against the rights, interests and livelihoods of poor people

*Facilitate the creation of state and civil society organizations and coalitions, including paralegals who work in the interest of the excluded

*Establish a legitimate state monopoly on the means of coercion, through, for example effective and impartial policing

*Make the formal justice system, land administration systems, and relevant public institutions more accessible by recognizing and integrating customary and informal legal procedures with which the poor are already familiar

*Encourage courts to give due consideration to the interests of the poor

*Support mechanisms for alternative dispute resolution

*Foster and institutionalize access to legal services so that the poor will know about laws and be able to take advantage of them

*Support concrete measures for the legal empowerment of women, minorities, refugees and internally displaced persons, and indigenous peoples