Improving access to justice for vulnerable population groups in Burundi

Being present in Burundi for more than ten years, the intervention strategy of ASF in the country is based upon the following principles: - Specialisation in legal aid to people in vulnerable situations: ASF has developed an expertise in the implementation of legal aid programs for the most vulnerable, based on 15 years of experience in fragile and/or developing countries. - Furthering the social role of the lawyer and strengthening his technical capacities: ASF works on strengthening the lawyer's capacities (and his independence), because he/she is a key actor concerning access to justice and the right to a fair trial, as well as an objective in its own right. Furthermore, ASF wishes to promote the social role of the lawyer that allows him/her to be an agent of change in regard to generating a progressive jurisprudence and/or boosting legal reform. - Synergy and partnership with stakeholders in the countries of intervention: ASF strives to engage in positive dialogue with actors in countries of intervention and to identify objectives and actions that are common or converging. - Sharing knowledge and lessons learned: To meet the challenges posed by our contexts of intervention, ASF has developed "models" of intervention, endogenous and innovative mechanisms such as legal clinics and mobile court hearings. These projects include the idea of learning and assessment by both ASF and its partners with a capitalization and duplication vision. In Burundi, the project aims to "develop access to coordinated and qualitative legal assistance for vulnerable people targeted by the National Strategy for Legal Aid (SNAL) in the three intervention provinces (Bujumbura, Gitega and Ngozi)", in accordance with: - The ASF mission; - The Sector Policy of the Government of Burundi, which intends to promote "a request for a stronger justice system"; - The Strategic Plan of the Bar Association ("promote legal assistance activities and programmes that strengthen, protect, and serve the public"); - Lessons learned from the work field, from previous evaluations and from results of the study on legal aid made by ASF in 2011, from which we can conclude that there’s a lack of coordination between providers of legal aid and that the involvement of legal actors in charge of legal aid needs to be strengthened and sustained. The development strategy of coordinated access to legal assistance and quality of providers who are legally responsible for providing legal aid services to vulnerable populations in the provinces of Bujumbura-Mairie, Gitega and Ngozi is part of a framework of sustainability and progressive disengagement and is based on two axis: 1. The transfer of skills to national actors through the gradual transfer of legal aid services to the partner, i.e the Bar Association and the continued support in project management, the technical capacity building for lawyers, the reinforcement of authorities and the civil society in issuing reception, advice and guidance services at the provincial level. 2. Improved synergies and complementarity of intervening actors in the field of legal aid at the national and provincial level. The project is implemented in partnership with the Bar Association. Present mainly in the capital, the Bar Association will organize legal aid services in Bujumbura-Mairie, while ASF will organize these services in Gitega and Ngozi. The middle-term objective is that the institution can also arrange legal aid in the provincial sector of the country; a study on the feasibility of installing lawyers in the province is part of the project. To contribute to achieving the intended results of this project, another project will be implemented, also funded by Belgium (Synergy line with PIC), which aims to support the effective implementation of the National Strategy for Legal Aid in Burundi (SNAL), by conducting a study on the mechanisms of funding legal aid, and by providing ongoing support to the Thematic Group "Application of Justice", which is responsible for the implementation of the SNAL at the national and provincial level. Activities of the project: So that the Bar Association is more capable of and adapted towards organising, managing and developing legal aid for those vulnerable people targeted by the SNAL in the province of Bujumbura-Marie in order to, eventually, repeat this in other provinces: - Support the activation of the Legal Aid Commission in the Bar Association; - Selection and implementation of a pool of 'legal aid' lawyers; - Organizational and managerial support to the Bar Association (Recruitment of a development coordinator of the legal aid project of the Bar/ASF); - Development of a professional training curriculum for lawyers in legal aid and training national trainers on the curriculum; - Development of a system of and tools for monitoring/evaluation of the Bar Association’s legal aid activities during a workshop; - Feasibility study on the installation of law firms in the province. To ensure judicial assistance in line with the minimum standards of legal representation to the vulnerable people targeted by the SNAL in the provinces of Bujumbura-Mairie, Gitega and Ngozi, and in order for a small group of lawyers to be fully equipped to provide this legal representation: - Training of the pool of lawyers conducted by trainers of the Bar Association assisted by experts, and coachingsessions of the pool of lawyers by experts; - Support to the pilot project "Illegal preventive detention" and to the judicial assistance at the bottom of the Bar Association in the province of Bujumbura; - Systematic assistance of those accused who have been illegally detained in prisons in the provinces where ASF is intervening (Gitega and Ngozi); - Judicial assistance to those ‘at the bottom' of the vulnerable categories targeted through the pool of lawyers in the provinces of Ngozi and Gitega; - Meetings of the Monitoring and Evaluation Committee and satisfaction surveys of the beneficiaries of judicial assistance of the Bar Association and ASF. So that the reception, advice, and guidance services to the vulnerable people targeted by the SNAL will be increasingly assured through 'synergy' between the different actors through a progressive accountability of the decentralised state structures in the coordination of actions in the provinces of Gitega and Ngozi: - Support the development of the Provicial Action Plans 2012/2013, strengthening the coordination mechanism, and coordination meetings/monthly monitoring at the provincial level; - Workshops legal capacity building of the student pool, of the Family Development Centers (FDC) of Gitega and Ngozi, and of the judicial services of the intervention prisons and the local government; - Sensitization actions and technical assistance/strengthening of the FDC and judicial services of prisons in the pilot provinces with the support of graduating law students; - Consultation activities and legal advice in the two legal clinics, in the intervention prisons and mobile legal aid clinics with the support of graduating law students.;