The Role of Legal Aid in Ensuring the Right to Access to Justice in Civil Matter: the Law and the Practice in Ethiopian Federal Courts.
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Date
2024-05
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
Human rights are protected by all human beings by birth without any discrimination on any ground, including on the ground of disability. One of such right is the right to access to justice. The CRPD came up with the innovative ascription of ‘access to justice’ as a self-standing right to persons with disabilities for the first time in the history of formative human rights instruments. This recognition of access to justice by itself echoes that persons with disabilities have been immensely victims of injustice. In rectifying this pervasive inequity, the Convention outlines apposite equalizing schemes for persons with disabilities like the provision of procedural accommodations in all legal proceedings and in all capacities that they may take in such proceedings. This entails State parties to furnish the necessary procedural accommodations such as the provision of legal aid to persons with disabilities in a legal proceeding taking in to account the nature and type of impairments and age of these persons without any exception to set aside this international commitment. Using qualitative doctrinal research method, this research examines the role of legal aid in accessing justice by PWDs. The findings of the research revealed inaccessibility of most of the physical infrastructure of Courts, weak provision of the necessary procedural accommodations, limited understanding of the staffs of the courts about the rights of persons with disabilities due to lack of trainings on the subject-matter and weak means of provision of legal aid system. The aggregate effect of these circumstances entails, inter alia, first, clients of the Federal Courts with disabilities are not enjoying the protections guaranteed by the CRPD; second, clients of the Federal Courts with disabilities are not exercising their right to access justice on an equal basis with others, third, the above two states of affairs make the whole process of all legal proceedings including the subsequent final decisions unjust. This research therefore recommends for the revision of laws; enforcement of existing laws; strengthening legal aid system with sufficient fund and adequate human resource.
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Keywords
Access to Justice, Persons With Disability, Federal Court, Legal aid