Event Brief October 2013 Jordan Improving Access to Justice Enhancing Community-Driven Legal Aid Services to the Poor Project J ustice sector reforms implemented over the last decade have made Jordan a regional leader in improving service delivery. The Ministry of Justice made improving access to justice a priority under its 2010-2012 Judicial Reform Strategy. However, activities aimed at implementing this policy remained minimal. Poor persons often face unique obstacles in accessing justice, which include lack of awareness of their rights and how to enforce them, and limited resources to access courts and lawyers when needed. “This program fills Legal aid services a considerable - which involve Photo: A beneficiary of the Project explaining the gap in provision of public information, challenges he encountered before the JSDF project legal aid services counseling and legal began implementation: “Hiring an attorney was to the poor. It will representation - beyond my means” he mentioned help provide poor can help the poor communities with overcome these and inheritance. the tools needed, obstacles. These improve awareness Legal aid had also been limited primarily of rights, and provide services also allow beneficiaries to access to urban areas around Amman. The lack mechanisms to of legal aid services available for civil exercise those rights public benefits, such as social assistance and family law cases, especially in more through courts rural areas, highlights the need for a more and the assistance programs, and enforce comprehensive approach to delivering of lawyers when rights to assets services. This assistance will complement necessary. Its such as alimony, the services provided by the Government of innovation is in its child support and Jordan in serious criminal cases. use of civil society employment benefits. organizations to In Jordan, the right The “Enhancing Community-Driven deliver services in to state-sponsored Legal Aid Services to the Poor” program, cooperation with legal aid is limited funded by the Japan Social Development poor communities.” to serious criminal Fund (JSDF) with $2.6 million, addresses cases. Yet according the need to provide legal aid services - Paul Prettitore more comprehensively, and in greater to a survey conducted Task Team Leader World Bank cooperation with poor communities. The in 2011, poor persons development objective of the program is demonstrate the most to support access to justice for the poor need for cases involving personal status and other vulnerable persons by improving issues, which include marriage, divorce, justice sector services based on demand- alimony, child custody and support, side priorities of poor communities and The Japan Social Development Fund (JSDF) was established in June 2000 by the Government of Japan and the World Bank as a mechanism for providing direct assistance to the poorest and most vulnerable groups in eligible World Bank group member countries. The World Bank supported by community-driven implementation. Box 1- Key Data As civil society has been the primary provider of • Project ID #: P128689 legal aid services in Jordan to date, the JSDF grant • Implementing Agency: Justice Center for has been made to the Justice Center for Legal Aid (JCLA), a Jordanian civil society organization. Legal Aid (JCLA) (Refer to Box 1) • Grant Amount: US$2.6 million • Approval Date: October 12, 2011 During the period of the grant, the World Bank • Closing Date: August 8, 2015 will assist JCLA with improving the effectiveness and sustainability of services, which will include experimenting with different types of service The activities included in the two program delivery mechanisms, including training and use of components are based on lessons-learned from lawyer apprentices, developing pro bono lawyer JSDF Seed Fund grants (Refer to the section networks, use of community leaders to provide Taking Stock -Lessons Learned from the JSDF public information, and self-help mechanisms Seed Fund Grants). (phone hotlines, online assistance). Through these Seed Fund grants the project The Project is targeting the following beneficiaries: Poor and vulnerable persons, primarily women (68% The World Bank, with JSDF funding, is of beneficiaries), and the vast majority of supporting the piloting of legal aid centers beneficiaries (1008 of the 1419 consultations and (LACs) administered by JCLA. These LACs will 719 of the 1014 legal representations) are related provide public information, counseling and legal to personal status issues (access to alimony child representation in cases involving personal status, support and dowries, and divorce cases). civil and minor criminal cases. They will also extend services throughout all governorates of Ensuring the Project is reaching the most vulnerable in Jordan, including rural areas. Jordan The program involves two core components: Two steps were taken to ensure the main beneficiaries of the program are the poorest Component 1: and most vulnerable. Firstly, LACs and services are being located in areas identified as poverty This component covers capacity-building to JCLA pockets by the Government of Jordan, and to effectively deliver legal aid services in a more referrals will be made from other local CSOs sustainable manner. The project aims to develop working with the poorest and most vulnerable new service delivery procedures, improve case persons. Secondly, a means-test is being management practices, develop data and analysis, administered to potential beneficiaries. The and integrate elements of sustainability into legal means-test is based on income of the beneficiary aid services. and his/her family, size of the family, and a socio- economic assessment. Based on the means test, Component 2: a sliding scale of payments will be applied, so that services are free for the most poor, and those able This component covers the provision of legal aid to will be asked to pay small amounts for services. services to the poor and enhancing accessibility This ensures free legal aid services are reserved for to justice at the community level. It involves the the most poor and vulnerable. establishment of LACs located in areas of high poverty throughout Jordan. Each governorate of Jordan will be covered either through establishment of six new LACs, co-location of JCLA staff in existing offices of local civil society organizations (CSOs), or by mobile services involving regular visits of LAC staff to more remote areas. The program aims to serve 14,900 beneficiaries over a four-year period, including: •• 7,500 beneficiaries through public awareness •• 9,500 beneficiaries through individual and group counseling, and •• 6,400 beneficiaries through legal representation by a lawyer Photo: Almost 70% of beneficiaries of this project are women, which highlights the intersection of the justice sector and poverty in Jordan. Women overwhelmingly seek assistance in personal status matters such as child support and alimony. 2 http://www.worldbank.org/jsdf Progress results LACs have been established in Amman, Irbid, Zarqa and Aqaba. Plans are underway to extend services to Mafraq, Jerash, Ajloun, Karak and Ma’an. JCLA held 125 awareness sessions which took place in Amman, Zarqa, Rusaifah and Madaba and were attended by nearly 4,000 beneficiaries including more than six hundred Palestinian, Iraqi and Syrian refugees. The topics included women’s and children’s rights, child abuse and protection, sexual harassment, Box 2- Salma: A Cry for Help labor law, social security law and landlord- tenant law. Salma (not her real name) suffered from years of continuous verbal and physical abuse by her husband. In 2012, JCLA provided consultations to more When she left this abusive relationship, Salma’s husband than one thousand beneficiaries, and legal took legal custody of their six daughters. Unable to pay representation to roughly eight hundred for a lawyer to help her, Salma sought assistance from a beneficiaries. The case type and gender of LAC run by JCLA. With their assistance, she won custody beneficiaries is highlighted on table 1. The of her six daughters and received an award for and child statistics are demonstrating the common support from her husband. “Justice was made and I’m intersection of the justice sector and poverty very grateful for this. Thank you to JCLA and JSDF that - poor women needing assistance in accessing made this possible” she gratefully concluded. economic assets such as alimony, child support and dowries. (Refer to Box 2 to read Salma’s case). encountered the following challenges with respect to access to justice and legal empowerment for the poorest communities: lack of awareness and Taking Stock -Lessons Learned from the JSDF Seed understanding of rights and the mechanisms to Fund Grants enforce them; lack of assessing the demand- side priorities of poor communities; limited local community involvement in developing and This project is piloting a different approach and delivering legal aid services; high costs (lawyer taking stock from previous projects, lessons and court fees) associated with accessing justice; learned and innovations based on data collected a fractured legal aid system that does not provide from the implementation of two JSDF Seed Fund comprehensive or sustainable services; and poor grants. targeting of services so that services are not provided in priority cases. Previous projects implemented by CSOs TABLE 1: Case Type, Most Frequent Issues and Gender To tackle these challenges, the project is of Beneficiaries experimenting with different types of service delivery mechanisms, including: Most Frequent Consultations Representation Case Type Issues Male Female Male Female • Establishment of comprehensive provision of Landlord- legal aid services through the JCLA network. Civil Tenant, Loans, 141 115 81 54 This is being supported by the referral system Damages, Commercial Papers implemented with other CSOs; co-location of JCLA legal staff in the offices of other CSOs; and the pro bono lawyers network which will be Assault, expanded to include lawyers and other volunteers Property Damage, Criminal Fraud, Attempted 70 43 106 39 from poor communities. This coordinated and Murder, Theft, comprehensive system will replace the ad hoc Domestic Violence delivery of services currently in place in Jordan. • Using mobile legal aid services (part-time Divorce, Personal Status Alimony, Parental 58 538 24 435 offices, regular legal staff visits, cooperation with Visitation, Dowries local CSOs) to bring, for the first time, legal aid services to rural and remote areas of Jordan; Drafting Contracts, Assistance with • Development and implementation of eligibility Administrative Administrative 56 30 49 12 criteria for legal aid, with a sliding scale of Procedure, payments for those able to pay, thus reserving Personal Documents free services for the most poor and vulnerable. To date, assessments of eligibility of clients were 3 Box 3- Nasser: Seeking Justice Nasser (name has been changed to protect the beneficiary), an accountant living in a small province in Jordan, arrived to work one day to find someone had illegally taken out a loan in his name, which could result in his imprisonment. Unable to afford a lawyer, Nasser was referred by another CSO to JCLA, which provided him legal representation. Nasser was able to clear his name of all charges and bring the perpetrators to justice. done on an individual basis, taking large amounts financial contribution requirements based on the of time and resources. Once implemented, the ability of clients to pay. These contributions will be eligibility criteria will free resources for counseling used to support ongoing costs and to finance and representation services. more cases. • Introduction of an automated case management •• Community Participation: The participation of poor system for legal counseling and representation communities, through measuring the demand- cases, which allow for monitoring and evaluation side of services and implementing services at the of legal aid services, and allow for the compilation community level (legal awareness and counseling), of data and statistics on demand-side of services will provide community members with a stake in for poor communities, which can in turn be used continuation and expansion of legal aid services, thus for advocacy purposes to advise reform of public providing program sustainability. sector services. Next Steps Ensuring Sustainability The project is launching a series of policy advocacy The project is instituting a series of measures activities to secure government support and to through JCLA that will help sustain its services develop strategies to expand the provision of legal beyond the life of the project. Following is a brief aid through the state. While a state-funded legal description of each measure: aid model might not be attainable in the near future due to the financial constraints currently •• Leveraging resources through partnerships and being faced by the government and the global expansion of the pro bono lawyers’ network: This economic climate, some measures can be adopted JSDF project’s model is built on that of JCLA’s in the medium term that would increase the partnerships with CSOs that involves placement of support of the government for integrating services JCLA lawyers within the offices of NGO partners, provided by civil society organizations. Such which is leveraging the resources and knowledge measures will be defined through a consultative of these organizations, avoiding duplication of process, the output of which will include concrete resources and maintaining costs at a minimum level. steps and recommendations for legislative Through partnerships with the Bar Association amendments to support increased government and private law firms, this project is building a support and funding for legal aid. strong network of pro bono lawyers. In addition, partnerships with law faculties will be established Legal aid services – comprising public information, to integrate law students and newly-graduated counseling and legal representation by a lawyer – lawyers into the network, and discussions are already are an important means to promote greater access underway with University of Jordan, the largest to justice for poor persons. When designed and law faculty. implemented effectively, legal aid can also play a key role in promoting equality and inclusion of •• Income generation and financial sustainability: The poor communities and give them new hope. (Refer legal services provided to the poor are based on a to Box 3 to read Nasser’s case). payment schedule commensurate with the financial capability of the applicant. The project is establishing The Japan Social Development Fund -- JSDF Emergency Window Briefs seek to share achievements, knowledge and lessons learned from the implementation of JSDF EW projects over the past decade. The JSDF is a partnership between the Government of Japan and the World Bank to support innovative social programs that directly meet the needs of the poorest and most vulnerable groups in developing countries. JSDF projects meet four basic requirements: Innovative, introducing new approaches to development; Responsive to the needy, by directly meeting the needs of vulnerable, marginalized, and disadvantaged groups; Rapid response activities that deliver short-term results and benefits to targeted beneficiaries; and Community capacity building activities that empower local governments, NGOs, and disenfranchised groups, while promoting stakeholders participation and ownership.