Justice Policy Series, Part I: Access to Justice

The Open Government PartnershipThe Open Government Partnership (OGP) is a multi-stakeholder initiative focused on improving government transparency, ensuring opportunities for citizen participation in public matters, and strengthen... More (OGP) provides an opportunity for government and civil society reformers to make government more transparent, participatory, and accountable. Working together, government and civil society co-create two-year action plans with concrete commitments across a broad range of issues that are then monitored by OGP’s Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM)The Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM) is OGP’s accountability arm and the main means of tracking progress in participating countries. The IRM provides independent, evidence-based, and objective .... Until recently, access to justiceAccessible justice systems – both formal and informal – ensure that individuals and communities with legal needs know where to go for help, obtain the help they need, and move through a system tha... More has been a small part of these action plans. However, thanks to increased global activity around access to justiceTo address barriers that prevent citizens from having their justice needs met, OGP participating governments are working to expand transparency, accountability, and inclusion into all systems of justi..., there is growing interest by many governments and civil society leaders to better link justice with open government.

Justice merits greater attention within OGP. While the number of justice commitments in action plans continues to grow, overall there are still too few. And although the commitments that have been put forward could improve government transparencyAccording to OGP’s Articles of Governance, transparency occurs when “government-held information (including on activities and decisions) is open, comprehensive, timely, freely available to the pub... More, civic participation, and accountability, the IRM has determined that many have not been fully implemented.

This paper encourages justice reformers to better connect with OGP and its processes as a strategy to implement change. Through OGP’s built-in collaboration between government and civil society, different actors in the justice community (e.g., executive branches, judicial institutions and legal services providers) have a natural space to collaborate on making concrete commitments to improve access to justice. Moreover, OGP allows policymakers to learn from their peers in different countries. The successes and challenges faced by countries in implementing justice-related commitments–as shared through action plans and IRM assessments–can help open government advocates and policymakers in other countries develop locally-adapted commitments. This analysis explores the legal needs in OGP countries, how countries might use their OGP action plans to respond to these needs, the existing activities meeting those needs in OGP action plans, and areas for future work as suggested by OGP countries. But before we explore how OGP can advance access to justice, we must better understand why access to justice matters to OGP in the first place. 

Lessons from Reformers:

• Canada: Identifying Legal Needs and Their Costs
• Institutionalizing Community Paralegals: The South African Experience
• Improving Access to Justice for Individuals with Limited Decision-Making Capacity in Ireland
• Diversifying Funding for Legal Aid in the U.S.
• Afghanistan and Bulgaria: Establishing Special Courts

This paper is the first of three in a series on justice released as a part of the Open Government Partnership Global Report. In the coming months, the OGP will issue papers on Open JusticeAn open, independent, and impartial justice system serves as a foundation for better access to justice by fulfilling all people’s civil liberties and allowing individuals to more effectively protect... and Justice as a Means to Enforce Open Government. The series aims to highlight the important synergies between justice and open government and the ways in which countries can use OGP to make accountable, credible improvements to their justice systems.

Additional Resources

• Find the Global Report can be found here.
• Find the whole Justice Policy Series here.

Photo above by: Aubrey Wade/Namati