Beyond formal institutions: Justice mobilisation, access to justice and the rule of law in urban Pakistan

Abstract

Rights to access justice can't only be seen in terms of courts, constitutional rights and formal legal remedies. The enabling effect of legal protection for marginalised communities is dependent on the capacity of people to identify their grievances, to gain access to information, to access institutions and to access meaningful remedies. The article explores the role that community-based mechanisms of justice mobilisation play in access to justice and experiences of the rule of law in urban Pakistan. It employs a doctrinal and socio-legal methodology, and relies on the constitutional provisions, laws, judicial decisions, scholarship on access to justice and institutional evidence in Pakistan. The essay proposes a double role for community organisations, civil-society actors, legal-aid providers, paralegals and collective networks. They could increase direct access to justice in a number of ways, including the alleviation of informational, economic and procedural barriers, but their need can also reveal the weaknesses in the direct access to formal institutions. The analysis also categorises rights-enabling community mobilisation from parallel, unaccountable and coercive adjudication. It is based on the assumption that justice mobilisation is a form of legal empowerment as well as a tool of diagnosis to evaluate the realisation of the rule of law. Access to justice, therefore, cannot be strengthened by replacing formal institutions, it can only be strengthened by the strengthening of the connection between the communities and the state, while considering the rights aspect.