• Justice
• Assessing justice

Justice

This paper reviews the indicators used to measure impacts and processes of access to justice and justice-related programs across the Asia-Pacific region and their limitations to assess improvements on access to justice by poor and disadvantaged groups.

The paper uses the rights-based approach framework for the classification of these indicators. The indicators were then assessed based on three perspectives:

• cost-effectiveness in data-gathering
• sustainability
  
• adequacy to assess access to justice by poor and disadvantaged group

In terms of cost-effectiveness, governmental agencies have the advantage given the amount of primary data they gather everyday. In terms of sustainability, the paper finds that various considerations of the different players affect the use of indicators in measuring access to justice initiatives in the region. The priority and availability of resources by government agencies affect the sustainability of legal and judicial reform programs in the region. In terms of adequacy, the orientation of institutional and non-institutional players affects the use and development of indicators

The paper makes the following recommendations to address these issues. These include:

• the need to further identify access to justice areas and categories that can be subjected to quantitative and qualitative treatment with the rights-based approach
• the use of participatory processes in assessing access to justice
• pre-testing parameters and benchmarks identified in the participatory processes employed in assessing access to justice in the region
• creation of a manual on access to justice indicators employed by numerous players in the Asia-Pacific region

• Full text of document
• Publisher details
• Send to a friend