Paralegal Services Crucial to Enhancing Access to Justice

For the period January 2018 to July 2022, PASI implemented Access to Justice project with support from European Union and UNDP.  The PASI interventions in communities, police establishments, courts and prisons enhanced access to justice, and contributed to reduced congestion in places of custody especially for those charged with petty offences. This was evident as follows:

• firstly, Paralegals facilitated the release of 149,662 suspects and accused charged with petty cases from the places of detention;
• and secondly, 81,747 cases were resolved outside the formal justice system through village mediation in  communities.

These outputs contributed to the results realized in the formal justice institutions where the 2021 percentage caseload of petty cases went down to 34%,  lessened pressure as compared to the baseline value of 48% recorded in the year 2017. Furthermore, the 2021 percentage of prisoners serving a sentence of less than 3 years dropped to 28% , lessened pressure as compared to the baseline value of 42% recorded in the year 2017.

"The overall result is that, apart from the poor people being able to access justice, the formal justice institutions were also assisted through decongestion of places of detention as well as diversion of petty cases to the Village Mediators." -PASI National Director, Mr Clifford Msiska