Legal advice and information in three regions of Ethiopia ... · PDF fileLegal advice and information in three regions of Ethiopia: a practical guide ... Contents 1 Introduction 4

Legal advice and information in three regions of Ethiopia: a practical guide

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Throughout the world, but particularly in developing countries, poor people do not have access to legal information and advice and therefore lack access to justice. While the rich buy the services of a lawyer, the poor cannot. This booklet describes a project that has established rights advice and information centres in three areas of Ethiopia and is now piloting ways of delivering outreach services in rural areas.

This booklet sets out the methods and ways in which the project established its centres and outreach services to identify lessons learned. A similar legal aid project exists in Malawi, which was started later than the Ethiopian one, and from time to time reference is made to lessons learned which have been incorporated in the Malawi model. The experience of the project is offered as a way of informing and improving future legal advice services in Ethiopia.

The principles of the service

Free: advice and information is free.

Confidential: Client information is confidential to those who work in the service and information can only be disclosed with the client’s permission.

Impartial: Advisers do not discriminate in deciding to whom they will give advice and they behave in a non-judgemental way, setting aside their own views and prejudices.

Independent: The advice and information given is determined by what the law says and what is written down in Government policies. The centres are independent of Government.

Empowering: The centres aim to empower people by giving them the information and advice they need to claim their entitlements.


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The booklet was written by Gil Long of the Active Learning Centre with the assistance of: Tsige Alemayehu, Ruth Soloman, Seife Ayalew, Yidneckachew Ayele and Abdi Nassero. The team would also like to thank Dr Girmachew Aneme and all the staff from the Centre for Human Rights for their support and help.

Thank you to Brenda Graham for proof reading and to Louise St. Clair for design and layout.

Published in Ethiopia, September 2011

ISBN 978-0-85261-423-5

www.aau.edu.et/humanrightswww.activelearningcentre.org

Contents

1 Introduction 4

2 The origins of the project and its design 5

3 The Centre for Human Rights 10

4 The management of the project 11

5 Setting up 14

6 Training for trainers and paralegals 18

7 Working with volunteers 22

8 Building capacity in other organisations 25

9 Local ownership 26

10 Raising awareness of rights 28

11 The urban centres 29

12 Outreach services in rural areas 33

13 Feedback and advocacy 36

14 Lessons learned 38

15 The way forward 39

16 The Centre for Human Rights, 41 School of Governance Studies, Addis Ababa University

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Introduction

The project to provide rights advice and information and legal aid was started in October 2008 and is funded by the British Department for International Development. The main partners are the Active Learning Centre, UK who are the grantholders and the Centre for Human Rights in Addis Ababa University.

The project aims to make a difference to the lives of poor people by raising awareness of their legal rights and by providing them with the means to access detailed information and advice about how to seek redress. The intended beneficiaries are poor people living in the urban centres and surrounding rural areas of Addis Ababa, Hawassa and Adama. The project has created three legal advice and information centres where trained paralegals operate on a regular basis to give advice to members of the public. A legal literacy campaign to raise awareness of rights and advertise the presence of the centres is delivered through radio programmes. Each legal advice centre is staffed by a co-ordinator, overseeing a team of trained paralegals and advised by a local advisory committee composed of local government and community representatives. Clients’ cases provide evidence of gaps in the law or policy or lack of implementation and this information is collected and published in briefing sheets to advocate for reform. A major aim of the project is to make legal advice accessible to people living in rural areas through establishing outreach clinics in the areas surrounding the centres.

The specific aims of the project are three fold: To ensure that poor people have access to advice

and information about their legal rights and the opportunity to seek redress.

To use the evidence gathered from the people who use the legal advice centres to feed back to government information on the impact of laws and policies and to make recommendations for improvement.

To create public awareness of human rights and the laws of the country.

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Legal advice and information in three regions of Ethiopia: a practical guideThe origins of the project and its design: the links between poverty reduction and human rights

The project was conceived and funded with the understanding that working on human rights is fundamental to addressing poverty and development. This was the starting point and framework for the project.

Much of current development literature focuses on what is generally termed a rights based approach to poverty reduction1. This conceptual framework owes much to Sen’s work on understanding poverty as a ‘deprivation of basic capabilities rather than merely a lowness of incomes’. In essence Sen argues that poverty can be seen as a denial of freedom or the lack of capability of a poor person to pursue his or her well-being. Although low income is the underlying feature of poverty, it alone does not describe or provide the reason for the condition. For instance, lack of access to basic health care leads to ill health and often results in lack of ability to earn a living. This way of understanding poverty replaces a narrow focus on low income with a multi-dimensional approach which encompasses, for example, lack of education, health, the inability to participate in society or lack of dignity. Whilst Sen does not use the language of human rights, development practitioners have used his analysis and his emphasis on freedoms and capabilities to view poverty as a denial of basic human rights: for instance, the right to freedom from hunger, to an adequate standard of living, the right to health, to education etc.

Characteristics of a rights based approachA right is something to which one is entitled by virtue of being a human being and can be distinguished from a need. Rights are fundamental to human dignity, to self worth and entail an obligation on the part of the state. By contrast, needs may express aspirations but without any obligation of the government to respond.

Rights based approaches to addressing poverty and development espouse the key principles of human rights:

Universality and indivisibility Human rights belong equally to all human beings and provide the basis for development. Using the human rights framework recognises the interdependence and interaction of economic, social, cultural and civil and political rights. For example, having a right to an adequate standard of living may depend on having

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1 Sen Amartya, Development as Freedom 1999, Poverty Reduction and Human Rights: a practice note, UNDP 2003, Human Development reports, 2000 and 2002, UNDP; Human Rights and Poverty Reduction: A conceptual Framework, OHCHR, 2004

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rights to farm land; exercising the right to the highest attainable standard of health may imply having rights to information and education as well as an adequate standard of living.

Equality and non-discriminationInequality and discrimination are major causes of poverty. Adopting a rights-based approach emphasises that rights are the entitlement of everyone and highlights the need to address discrimination. Human rights apply to people living in poverty as well as the rich. International law prohibits discrimination on any grounds: ethnicity or race, colour, sex, or any other social status, for example, people living with HIV/AIDS.

Participation and inclusion An essential tenet of the human rights framework is that everyone is entitled to be an active participant in society and to enjoy civil, political, economic and social rights. In turn, this requires people to be empowered with the information and the voice to be able to participate fully in society.

Accountability and the rule of law States have the obligation to ‘respect’, ‘protect’ and ‘fulfil’ the rights contained in international treaties and conventions. ‘Respect‘ requires states to refrain from interfering in the enjoyment of rights, for example, the right to housing would be violated if a state engaged in forced evictions. The obligation to ‘protect’ means the state should protect against the violation of rights by third parties, for instance, ensuring that employers comply with employment laws that set standards for fair conditions of work. ‘Fulfil’ requires states to enact laws and policies to progress towards realisation of

rights, for example, establishing policies to address economic growth in order to provide an adequate standard of living. These principles emphasise the need for accountability and the rule of law. Everybody is entitled to equality before the law and for disputes to be decided by an independent and fair process.

Rights based approaches focus both on the desired outcomes of development – the realisation of rights – and on the process by which these can be achieved. The approach also highlights how development has to focus not simply on service delivery but on the way in which governance and decision making processes are integral to progress. This more integrated approach in which economic development is coupled with a focus on rights and governance is reflected in many poverty reduction strategies and also the Millennium Development Goals.

The rationale for the project: the Ethiopian contextDespite recent progress, Ethiopia has an estimated 40 per cent2 of its 82 million people living below the nationally defined poverty line, the majority of whom live in rural areas. Specific groups are known to be more vulnerable to poverty than others: women, people living with HIV/AIDS, the elderly and the disabled.3 These groups are the targets for the project.

As described earlier, the project was conceived within the framework of a rights-based approach recognising that addressing people’s needs for information and advice about their legal rights is fundamental to tackling poverty. Raising awareness of rights and offering information alone, however, is

1 World Bank data 2011: http://data.worldbank.org/country/ethiopia2 Ethiopia: Building on Progress A Plan for Accelerated and Sustained Development to End Poverty 2006, PASDEP

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insufficient. To claim entitlements people need access to a means of redress. For example, helping women to understand their rights to freedom from abuse is only the first step. Securing the women’s rights requires access to a means of ending the abuse and resolving the situation. It entails offering legal advice and a means of pursuing a complaint; only then may social justice be secured. However, the majority of poor people in Ethiopia are not able to secure their rights or means of redress due to poverty, ignorance of the law or illiteracy. The project therefore set out to pilot a cost effective model of providing free legal advice and information and access to redress.

Tewabech has two children. Her husband has moved away to another town and took a new wife. She went to see him to ask for maintenance for her children but he refused to pay her anything. Tewabech tried to survive by making injera but could not make enough to feed her children or send them to school. She sought advice at the centre where the paralegals wrote a petition which she presented at the first instance court, where she secured an order for 600 birr a month in child maintenance.

4 All case studies are taken from client records. Names are changed to protect confidentiality.

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and in the democracy and governance section:

“foster the development of constitutional, human rights and democratic culture

Ensure the legal protection and rights of children, women, people living with HIV/AIDS and people with disabilities”.

A further aim of the project was to provide feedback to government and other bodies about the impact and implementation of laws and policies. These may aim to be comprehensive but practice often reveals gaps and anomalies. Alternatively, laws and policies may exist but not be implemented. Advocacy based on the evidence of the people using the legal advice service was therefore built into the design of the project. This entailed setting up adequate monitoring systems to capture the issues clients raise: the evidence base for advocacy. The case recording system is described later.

When the project started, Ethiopia’s Plan for Accelerated and Sustained Development to End Poverty (PASDEP) was the main anti-poverty strategy. This emphasised reform of the justice sector and legal changes to support, for example, the rights of people living with HIV/AIDS and to address sexual harassment. Currently the Growth and Transformation Plan is the key strategic document. The section on ‘Capacity Building and Governance’ cites a number of implementation plans which the project supports. In the justice sector:

“Rendering effective, efficient and accessible justice

Carrying out legislative drafting, codification and consolidation works based on researches

Distributing and making the laws known by the public in an efficient manner

Ensuring that the legal rights and interests of women, children and persons that are exposed to HIV virus are respected”

Kebede is a man of about 50 who is HIV positive. He worked for the same company for 28 years and came to the centre to ask advice about how he should resign from his work because of his ill health. He was told that he should give one month’s notice and he would also be entitled to severance pay because he is HIV positive.

Ethiopia, along with 189 other countries, is signatory to the Millennium Development Goals, a set of 8 time bound, quantifiable goals that focus on human development and which signatories are committed to implementing.5 UNDP in addressing the links between rights and development argues that: “The human rights framework provides an important tool for achieving the MDGs by helping to ensure the Goals are pursued in an equitable, just and sustainable manner”.6 Underlying the goals is the assumption that discrimination and marginalisation need to be addressed to achieve poverty reduction for example, focusing on women and those living with HIV/AIDS.

5 http://www.beta.undp.org/undp/en/home/mdgoverview.html6 Human Rights and the MGDs, UNDP, 2006

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While the MDGs provide the overarching framework for development assistance in Ethiopia and as a consequence much funding is channelled into economic development, health, education and other key sectors, the Democratic Institutions Programme (DIP) has been a significant focus for donor attention. A number of major donors identified funds that were to be used specifically for building ‘democratic institutions’ such as the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission, the Office of the Ombudsman and to pursue policies that would support democracy and accountability such as ‘freedom of information’. While policy development and institution building, ‘the top down approach’, are crucial components, the ability of the public to question and demand redress, ‘the bottom up approach’ is also central to strengthening democracy and accountability. The legal literacy or public awareness component of the project as well as the delivery of legal advice through the centres and outreach services illustrate this ‘bottom up approach’. In summary, the project design was based on analysis of the current situation in Ethiopia. A base line study further documented the general public’s lack of understanding of legal rights and of access to justice. The project took the definite decision to focus on social and economic rights rather than adopt a narrower definition of human rights as violations of civil and political rights. The project based its design around current development thinking about the links between rights and poverty reduction and took into account the Ethiopian Government’s own strategy for poverty reduction and its commitment to the Millennium Development Goals.

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Legal advice and information in three regions of Ethiopia: a practical guideThe Centre for Human Rights, Addis Ababa University and other partners 3The project is based within the Centre for Human Rights, Addis Ababa University and it is the Centre that is the main partner with the Active Learning Centre. The Centre was established in 2008 as a graduate academic institution with the mission of advancing human rights in Ethiopia through teaching, research and community service. The Centre considers the project as its flagship programme that enables the institution to provide community service focused on the poor. The staff members support the project and contribute to training for the paralegals, revising and updating the legal manuals and preparing briefing sheets. The practical knowledge acquired through the project is also used to inform courses for the graduate programme in the Centre.

The project is administered by the Centre on the basis of a memorandum of understanding signed between the University and the Active Learning Centre. This sets out the aims and objectives of the

project, the respective roles of the partners and arrangements for the operation of the project. In addition the project has developed partnerships with the law faculties of Hawassa and Adama Universities, which, like the law faculty in Addis Ababa University, allow their law students to work as paralegals within the legal advice centres. The use of law students as paralegals is discussed more fully in the section on working with volunteers.

As the project has progressed, other partnerships have developed, with local woreda and kebele officials from the Bureau of Justice, with the Prison Authorities in Hawassa and Adama, with the Bureau of Women, Children and Youth and other non-governmental and community organisations. These partnerships have been influential in shaping and advising the project, in providing access to vulnerable groups and also in the setting up and organisation of the three central legal advice centres and the outreach services.

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The management of the project 4The project has a full time manager, three part-time co-ordinators for each of the centres in Addis Ababa, Hawassa and Adama and a finance and administration officer based in the main office in Addis. The project manager reports to the Academic Commission of the Centre for Human Rights and also to the Active Learning Centre which has responsibility for overall reporting to

the Department for International Development. In addition the project has established a Project Advisory Committee at national level of Government and NGO stakeholders and similar committees at local level support the centres in Addis Ababa, Hawassa and Adama. The role of these committees is described in the section on ‘local ownership’.

Legal advice and information: organisational diagram

Project advisory committeeRepresentatives of Government

NGOs representing vulnerable groupsProvides advice and guidance to project

Project OfficeProject managerFinance manager

Department for International Development

Active Learning Centre

Centre for Human RightsAddis Ababa UniversityAcademic Commission

Hawassa Centre and outreach services

Centre co-ordinator

Adama Centre and outreach services

Centre co-ordinator

Addis Ababa Centreand outreach servicesCentre co-ordinator

Local Advisory CommitteesRepresentatives of Government,

NGOs and CBOsReporting lines and input to project

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Project staff and their skills The project manager has legal qualifications and a background of working in the public sector as a judge and within the Ministry of Justice, as well as experience in an international organisation. With overall responsibility for the direction of the project, the position demands skills in people management as well as the ability to steer a new and innovative project. In common with most small operations, the project manager also has to take overall responsibility for managing the budget and accounting for the project, as well as deploying writing skills, for example, to complete briefing sheets and reports to funders.

Project manager: summary job description Oversee the direction and management of

a team to deliver the aims and objectives of the project

Management of finances of project Establish and service the Project Advisory

Committee Commission and oversee the production of

radio programmes and other activities to raise awareness of rights

Research and writing to produce briefing sheets and other publications

Organise and manage the writing of legal manuals and training for trainers

Devise and oversee monitoring of progress against specified target

Report to grant holder and funders on progress of project and financial management

Centre Co-ordinator: summary job description Establish and manage urban legal aid

centres and rural outreach services Recruit, organise and supervise teams of

volunteer paralegals Organise and deliver training for paralegal

advisers Collect and collate monitoring information

to assess progress of project Manage and account for local finances for

the centres and outreach services Contribute to the writing and production of

briefing sheets and other written publications Plan and report on work to the project

manager

The centre co-ordinators were defined as part time jobs but in fact their posts proved to be much more time consuming. In order to run the centres and ensure proper coordination of the volunteers, each centre also uses its paralegals to assist with this work. Of the three co-ordinators, two have legal qualifications and one is a social science graduate. Whilst it is helpful for the co-ordinators to have legal qualifications in order to support and advise the paralegals and also check their work, it is not an essential qualification. Our centre co-ordinator with a social science degree quickly became very conversant with the law relevant to the issues that are typically raised by clients but where necessary seeks the legal expertise of the project manager. She has also enrolled as a masters student at the Centre for Human Rights. The project team is shown opposite.

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The partnership with the Active Learning Centre also brings skills and experience to the project as their project manager worked previously in a national rights advice organisation in the UK: Citizens Advice Bureaux. The Ethiopia project draws on experiences in a sister project in Malawi, the UK and Ethiopia and is very much a pilot in terms of trying to establish effective models of working.

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Setting up: developing the infrastructure for the project 5Setting up advice centres cannot be accomplished overnight. There is considerable work to be done in establishing the infrastructure: deciding which areas of rights are most relevant to the target population; developing the legal manuals that will be used as reference materials by the paralegals; establishing a mechanism for training the paralegals – a training of trainers; developing the training materials that will be used and identifying and setting up suitable premises which will both serve as offices for the project and spaces in which clients can be seen by the advisers.

The baseline survey The starting point for developing the manuals was to conduct a baseline survey that identified the key groups of vulnerable people and the rights and issues that most concern them. This piece of research was contracted to two consultants who conducted a series of interviews and focus groups in the main areas where the project takes place. As can be seen from the extract below, the terms of reference stated the main objectives of the study, the key groups of people who should be considered and gave some indication of the areas of rights that would be relevant.

Extract from Terms of Reference for Base Line StudyObjective of the base line survey The main objective of the base line survey is to identify the key areas of rights advice and information required by poor people. The results of the survey will be used for two purposes:

To inform the legal literacy campaign to be mounted as part of the project.

To determine the contents of the legal manuals to be used by the paralegal workers who will operate from the three centres envisaged by the project.

The scope of the work A key objective of the Project is to focus on the legal needs of groups that are especially vulnerable to poverty:

Women People with disabilities People living with HIV/AIDS Young people (for example, those without

family support or access to employment) Elderly people (for example those without

family support or any means of social security)

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It is expected that a number of key legal areas will be highlighted by the research:

Land (issues of access and possessions, rural land issues and inheritance)

Family law (marriage and divorce, custody and maintenance of children and succession),

Education policy and subsidiary legislations Labour law Political and civil rights

Whilst these may not be the only issues highlighted by the research, the methodology adopted for the research should consider these areas and attempt to identify the main issues within these topics in order to provide sufficient detail to inform the legal manuals.

The results of the baseline research documented a range of issues for each of the target groups. It had already been decided that the major focus would be on social and economic rights but the issues raised by the research highlighted the lack of economic rights, for example, rights to an adequate standard of living, and also the legal issues that pertain to these rights, for instance, employment rights; family law issues such as the right to child maintenance; fair division of property on divorce or separation; and issues of succession and access to land.

The research revealed that social and economic rights are often the subject of policy rather than statute. The right to education, for example, is enshrined in the

constitution but is also the subject of policy, such as the policy of affirmative action to encourage girls to continue in secondary and higher education. Another example illustrates the point. Access to food assistance and free medical care is dependent on being able to show a kebele registration. The research showed that many very poor people are denied these benefits because they are unable to show proof of residence, because they are itinerant or occupying an ‘illegal’ sub-let. The decision was taken that, where relevant, the legal manuals would try to incorporate policy where it was seen to be particularly relevant to poor people.

Design and writing of the legal manuals Accurate, up to date and accessible legal information is absolutely crucial to the success of any project that aims to use trained paralegals as advisers. The information given to clients must be clear, concise, relevant to their own situation and above all correct. Wrong information is worse than no information at all and therefore the writing and updating of the legal manuals is most important. Often attempts to re-write the law produce cut down versions that follow the order of the articles of the specific law. This is not very helpful: clients seldom come for advice on a specific article or chapter of the law. Most frequently, clients begin with a problem: my husband is violent, what can I do about it? Or my employer hasn’t paid my wages for a month, how can I get my money? The manuals have to be accessible to people without any background in the law as the project uses community members as paralegals as well as law students.

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The authors of the legal manuals adopted a problem centred approach. This sometimes meant reorganising the order of the manual and trying to focus on the problem areas that had been identified in the baseline survey. All the manuals were produced in Amharic, and later translated into Oromyfa and Sidamigna but there is an additional problem that regional law varies from the federal version. This was overcome by having the basic manual but copies of the regional proclamations are available in the centres for reference. Ideally, given sufficient resources, the manuals should be amended for use in different regions. In addition, there is the issue of traditional and religious law. In the areas of family law this is particularly important. For example, in cases of violence or family dispute within a Moslem marriage, Sharia law offers different solutions to statute.

Different types of law: setting out the options for the clientAsked the question: how would you advise a Moslem woman who has come to ask about divorce, a paralegal working in the Hawassa centre, Hannah, mentioned the need to tell the client what statute says but also to talk to her about what Sharia law says: “You need to present her with the options and let her decide.”

Temesegen recounts how traditional sources of justice may present another option. In Ethiopian law an agreement about family resources that exceeds 500 Birr must have the consent of both partners. The client’s wife had taken him to court and the case was pending. Temesegen advised the man of what the law said but also suggested that he might consult the Yager shimagele or council of elders who could mediate.

Presenting options is an important principle that is covered in the paralegal training: it is the client’s right to decide.

A team of lawyers undertook the writing of the manuals working to the format shown in the box.

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Updating the manuals: information must be accurate At a trainers’ meeting in June 2011 the manuals were completely revised and updated by the team. Keeping the manuals up to date ensures that clients receive the correct information. The updating process included new legislation, new decisions from the court of cassation which act as precedents. “We spent a full day with the whole team making sure that the manuals are complete and fully up to date. We have 22 pages of revisions to include in our new versions.” (Seife, centre manager for Adama) The manuals have also been translated into Oromyfa and Sidamigna.

Format to be followed for the legal manualsThe Legal Manuals should:

understandable by people who are non-lawyers.

paralegal to offer accurate and clear information about how the law addresses the problem of the client. Key legal texts will be available in each of the advice centres but it is important that the manuals can provide sufficient detail and accurate information so that they can be used by paralegals running outreach clinics in rural areas.

opposed to a chronological rewriting of the existing articles of the law.

that the client has in resolving his/her problem, For example, a woman trying to decide what to do if her husband is violent needs to consider a number of different options: intervention by a third party; referral to the police and criminal action; suing for divorce (may require information on child maintenance); doing nothing.

there may be cross over between one law and another. For example, the chapter on divorce should remind an adviser to consult the manual on child maintenance.

target groups are covered, taking into account urban and rural differences

particularly difficult areas of the law.

The manuals were produced in bound format and sufficient copies run off to give each paralegal a copy. This facilitated work in outreach clinics but meant that the manuals were on occasion not in sufficient detail to properly advise clients. Whilst researching other texts is easy within an urban setting, access to more detailed information is much more problematic for paralegals working in rural areas. Maintaining links with the centre and its support mechanisms is therefore crucial to ensuring standards of service.

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Training for trainers and paralegals: the cascade system 6Having an effective training policy and good training materials is key to ensuring the quality of service. The project uses a cascade model of training a group of people as trainers who then take responsibility for training the paralegals. The initial training of trainers drew on staff from the three universities’ law departments and the Centre for Human Rights, working judges and lawyers and included the centre staff. It was important to include people from each of the regions to ensure that the training for advisers can be delivered locally. Bringing people together from geographically diverse areas for a training of trainers is expensive but creates a ‘local’ pool of trainers ensuring that this training will be cheaper because it is local and tailored to local needs (for example, taking into account regional law) and local languages.

The week long training of trainers focused on participative training skills and ended with the trainers designing and delivering their own sessions on key aspects of the law. The main emphasis on the legal content sessions is on providing an overview of the topic, explaining any specific jargon or technical language and enabling the adviser to access the legal manuals which give much fuller information. Particular attention was focused on the sections of the syllabus that deal with essential skills, such as, the principles of advice giving, how to interview a client and how to make good case

records. Separate training materials were prepared for these sessions and incorporated with other sessions developed during the training for trainers course in a trainers’ manual.

Extract from training material on interviewing skills: Role play exercise to teach ‘active listening’Trainers’ notesAsk the participants to work in pairs. The ‘pairs’ will need to spread out in the room so that they can work as if they were in an interview situation. One of the pair is to be the adviser and the other is to take the role of the client. Ask the ‘clients’ to think about a problem they had recently – it can be a family problem or issue that they have had to deal with. It can be real or imaginary – it doesn’t have to be a legal problem. In this exercise the ‘advisers’ have to take the ‘clients’ from the start of the interview – ie practise welcoming the ‘client’ and sitting them down, inviting them to talk about their issue or problem and practise listening to the ‘client’. The ‘advisers’ should not ask questions during this exercise but use the techniques of reflecting back and paraphrasing to try to understand the ‘client’s’ problem. After about 10 minutes stop the role play and ask the ‘advisers’ to summarise the problem for the ‘clients’.

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Case study on exploring the options with the clientCase 2 TigistTigist is a domestic worker who is being exploited by her employer. Her wages haven’t been paid and she is asked to work extremely long hours and is treated badly.

Which areas of the law would you research for this client?

Which options would you explore with this client?

How would you go about clarifying what are Tigist’s aims?

The Malawi project has taken this a step further by designing materials, similar to the example shown, that can be used for group training sessions or for advisers learning on their own. The materials comprise: handouts for the adviser, trainers’ notes for teaching each session and a set of answers. This means that the training syllabus exists independently of those who are trained as trainers and is therefore more durable in the long term. In addition, self-study materials can be used by advisers who live in remote areas or as a way of ‘catching up’ if s/he misses a training session.

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In Ethiopia, in each subsequent year of the project, a short ‘refresher’ training for the trainers’ group has been mounted in order to keep the group together and induct one or two additional members to ensure a sufficiently large pool on which to draw for the paralegal training courses, a practice which is being adopted by the Malawi project.

Lessons learned in using the cascade model for training paralegals

Good to use a pool of legal experts but they need training in participative skills and session design to ensure training is at the right level for trainee advisers

Make sure the trainers are drawn from the regions where the centres are located to ensure continuity and a cost effective way of delivering local training

Training in paralegal skills is as important as content: – principles, interviewing, researching the legal manuals, case recording, writing submissions – these are all essential skills for paralegal advisers

Having a set of training materials that covers all topics and includes trainers’ notes helps to ensure standards and quality in training delivery

Refresher training for the pool of trainers helps to maintain commitment and interest and ensure sufficient numbers

The centre managers need to be trainers to ensure continuity in delivery of local training

The training course is only part of the

training needed: advisers need to be inducted and have a period where their interviews and cases are supervised by an experienced person

Training the advisersThe syllabus for the paralegals was discussed and confirmed at the first training of trainers and a number of areas of policy and principles debated as these would be fundamental to the training. The basic principles or values that underpin the operation of the legal advice centres are advertised in each centre and integrated into the training. Other issues concerned setting out aspects of policy for the centres, such as the procedure to be followed if two parties to a dispute approach a centre for help; the need for advisers to sign a statement guaranteeing confidentiality and the potential conflict of interest if local prosecutors were to volunteer as paralegals. Ideally matters of policy should be confirmed by the Project Advisory Committee and recorded as policy statements.

A free service or a service only for the poor?A main principle of the service is that it should be free. Potentially this conflicts with the aim of assisting the most vulnerable and poor. A policy decision confirmed that the service should be free but that we would try to ensure that the overwhelming majority of clients were poor by targeting our service on those groups known to be vulnerable to poverty: women, the elderly and young, disabled people and those living with HIV/AIDS. Case records suggest that this has been largely successful. This was achieved

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through targeted advertising and through inviting representatives of these specific groups onto our Project Advisory Committee and Local Advisory Committees: they provide a conduit to their members by advertising the service and referring members directly. Recruiting representatives of vulnerable groups to train as advisers also helps to provide the link that enables poor people to access the centres. For instance, the recruitment of a disabled person as an adviser encourages others with disabilities and there are roughly equal numbers of men and women paralegals.

Principles of advice work

Free: advice and information is free.

Confidential: Client information is confidential to those who work in the service and information can only be disclosed with the client’s permission.

Impartial: Advisers do not discriminate in deciding to whom they will give advice and they behave in a non-judgemental way, setting aside their own views and prejudices.Independent: The advice and information given is determined by what the law says and what is written down in Government policies. The centres are independent of Government.

Empowering: The centres aim to empower people by giving them the information and advice they need to claim their entitlements.

Advisers are asked to guarantee their support for the principles and to sign a statement of confidentiality.

The paralegal training course lasts for one week and it is recognised that this is insufficient to enable someone to be fully conversant with law on the key topics listed. However, the centre co-ordinators are there to give support and advice and to induct the adviser into the work of a paralegal. Ideally the training should be longer and supervised induction in which the adviser shadows a more experienced paralegal should be a compulsory part of training. In this project, resources for training and the fact that the centre co-ordinators are part-time meant this was not possible but these ideas have been adopted in Malawi. The training also needs to cover more topics, for example, a training module on mediation and negotiations skills is being developed in Malawi and will be adapted for use in Ethiopia.

Paralegal training syllabusPrinciples of legal advice workInterviewing skillsCase recordingHuman RightsFamily Law and SuccessionLabour lawJurisdiction of Courts and Procedural LawCivil and Criminal Code overviewContractLand Law

Role and responsibilities of Paralegals All advisers have to undertake the full course to gain their certificate and work as paralegals

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Working with volunteers 7The centres are staffed by volunteers but this does not mean that the service is not professional. In order to ensure the quality of advice, volunteers have to be carefully selected and trained and their work has to be both checked and supported to maintain high standards.

Recruiting volunteersThe project signed memoranda of understanding with Addis Ababa, Adama and Hawassa Universities which allows the project to recruit students from their law departments. However, although law students are obviously ideal in that they have some understanding of the law and legal procedures, the project also recruits people from communities surrounding the centres and the outreach services.

Community activists bring different skills and experience that are equally valuable to the project. For example, activists understand the communities where they live and can help to advertise the centres and the work that they do and encourage the most vulnerable to use the service. They also understand local traditions and culture, speak the local language or dialect and can help to negotiate in disputes or difficulties. It is also the case that trained activists quickly become familiar with key sections of the law and its practical interpretation. Community volunteers are also much more likely to remain as volunteers, while law students graduate, get jobs and move away. The section on the outreach services describes how pairing up local activists with law students can maximise effectiveness.

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Benefits for law students and the community Belayneh is a 4th year law student who heard about the project through an advert in the law department. He completed an application form and was selected as a paralegal. He volunteers every Wednesday afternoon in the Addis Ababa clinic since he completed the training. “ I have learned two main things”, he says, “firstly I have learned how the law is applied in practice. Now when I read the law for my classes I immediately begin to think about how it will be applied. Secondly, the work has helped me to understand the problems that people have and where the law is insufficient, violated or just not implemented.” In talking about how he interviews clients, Belayneh mentions that he uses the case record to take down details about the client first of all. This, he says, helps to calm them down and then he can pay full attention to listening to the client’s problem. “To help solve their problem as much as I can (do) is my greatest happiness.”

Volunteer selection It is often assumed that using volunteers implies that everyone who puts him or herself forward should be accepted. Whilst it is important to applaud people’s willingness to assist their community and give freely of their time, it must also be recognised that not everyone is suited to becoming a paralegal. Volunteers are selected and only those with the skills and abilities that match the job description are accepted for training. In the Malawi project the job description has been incorporated in a leaflet that

is used to recruit volunteers. All volunteers complete application forms and are interviewed by the centre co-ordinators before they are accepted for training.

What do advisers do?

problem and identify the key questions

research the law

are available to him or her

submissions for the court

What skills and abilities must I have?

the community and ability to empathise

service

Volunteer expenses By definition a volunteer is someone who works without pay. However, this doesn’t mean that people should lose money by volunteering. The funding for the project provides for travel expenses to enable the volunteers to travel to the centre or the outreach clinic and also a small lunch allowance.

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Supporting volunteers to provide a quality serviceProviding adequate support for volunteers is crucial to the success of the centres. There is the straightforward organisation of volunteers; to make maximum use of their labour and time, volunteers need to know when and where they will be expected to work and provided with ongoing support. This means that they should be able to ask the co-ordinator for advice on legal matters and interpretation of the law and assistance in how to handle a particularly difficult case or client or help in writing up cases. Case records are vital to ensuring quality and a professional service. They provide continuity of service by enabling a second or third paralegal to progress a case on a second or subsequent visit without the client having to ‘start again’. Most importantly, they are the means by which the centre co-ordinators check that the correct advice is being given to clients.

The case record developed for the project requires the adviser to fill in the numbers of the section for the legal manual that he or she consulted and summarise the advice given thereby allowing the centre co-ordinator to check that correct information has been given. Support and help can be given where advisers have made a mistake and, if necessary, corrective action taken. It is adequate support for volunteering that maintains professional standards and ensures that poor people are not being offered a ‘second class’ service simply because they cannot afford to pay for a lawyer.

Training: keeping up the pool of volunteersTraining is a constant activity in paralegal operations

as volunteers come and go for a variety of reasons. Students may be more likely to move away once they graduate, family responsibilities intervene in many people’s lives and therefore centres have to have reg-ular recruitment drives and training courses to keep up numbers. Whilst this may seem a wasteful process, it has to be remembered that people are changed by volunteering: they gain a host of skills, knowledge and valuable experience which they take with them. Training and volunteer experience is an investment in people that enriches communities.

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Building capacity in other organisations 8In most training courses representatives from the Bureau of Women, Children and Youth, local prosecutors and social court judges as well as people from NGOs representing vulnerable groups are included to help build capacity for legal advice in their organisations.

Most recently, people working with the legal aid project of the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission have attended our training and made use of the project’s legal manuals.

A recent paralegal training in Adama included 5 members of the Women’s Affairs Office who commented that they would like staff in all their offices to be trained by the project. They have staff who are responsible for advising women on a daily basis and they already make use of our legal manuals. Where their clients need specific legal help, for example, assistance with writing a pleading, a statement of defence or appeal, the Office refers people to the centre.

“The training has helped me a lot because we don’t have a formal legal training such training is very helpful in creating a better understanding of the Ethiopian legal system and the law…Every day we are facing enormous legal issues and having the legal manuals as well as the training has helped to provide better judgment and decision - provide good legal service to our community.” (Yenenesh Kebede, Social Court Judge at Kebele 14)

“I found the training to be very relevant to my work... I am daily facing enormous legal issues at the kebele and the training has helped me a lot to understand the legal issues related and provide better service…I use the manual as a reference and guidebook to consult legal issues related to my work.” (Doka Amare, Child Affairs and Protection Co-ordinator, Kebele 07)

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Legal advice and information in three regions of Ethiopia: a practical guideLocal ownership: the role of the Project Advisory Committee and Local Advisory Committees 9It is important that rights advice centres are rooted in the communities that they try to serve and are accountable to a wider group of stakeholders. In a three year project, establishing a proper management committee or board of trustees that has legal accountability and takes a role in strategic management was not considered an option, in part because the overall direction and management of the project is to a large extent pre-determined by the project application process and conditions of grant. It was for this reason that advisory committees were established at project level and for each of the centres.

The Project Advisory Committee (PAC) includes representatives from Government and the NGO sector, for instance, the Women’s Association, the Ministry of the Civil Service, The Federal HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control Office, the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission, the Ethiopian Lawyers’ Association, the Federation of Ethiopian National Associations of Persons with Disability, The Ethiopian Elderly and Pensioners’ Association, Ethiopian Women Lawyers Association, lecturers from the university law faculties in Addis and Adama and the Director of the Centre for Human Rights.

As indicated above the role of the PAC has been to guide the strategic development of the project and to create a link between the project and its target groups. The PAC is influential in gaining a wider audience for the briefing sheets, referring members to the centres and supporting the general direction of the project.

At the PAC meeting in June a member spoke about how his organisation (the HIV/AIDs Prevention and Control Office) needs to work more with the project. They already refer adult clients to the legal aid centres but he pointed out that there are now some millions of orphan children who need legal advice. The project has also been approached by UNICEF and UNHCR to provide specialist services for children and refugees.

The Project Advisory Committee: terms of reference

regular reports on progress

regular reports on current and expected expenditure

aid centres and progress issues by feeding back to relevant government departments

Assist in campaigns around legal rights issues

project in other fora / circles

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The Local Advisory Committees: terms of reference

forward issues identified through feedback from centres

the project and on the legal issues identified through case work

work plansRepresent and speak on behalf of the project.

from the Bureaux of Justice and the Women Children and Youth Affairs, local idir and iqub members and NGOs and CBOs representing the target groups.

The local committees aim to establish ‘local ownership’ of the centres and have been influential in helping the centres to develop into the rural areas, identifying suitable recruits as volunteers, assisting with negotiations with local officials as well as advertising the centre locally and referring their members to the centres. Often cases may require help beyond legal information and representation and sometimes it is local advisory committee members who can help. For instance, the representative of the Gulele sub-city Women’s Affairs Office who is on the Addis Ababa local advisory committee has helped by accepting referrals of people needing social assistance.Each local committee has members drawn from the

community surrounding the centres, for instance, members of the Women’s Association, woreda and kebele officials

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Raising awareness of rights 10The base line survey indicated that very few people are aware of their rights, indeed knowledge levels amongst the general public and officials is low. Raising awareness of rights is therefore a precondition to being able to claim entitlements or seek redress. In the project most awareness raising has been carried out using radio broadcasts. These have taken a variety of formats including phone-in programmes where members of the public phone with their questions on a particular topic; discussion programmes with legal experts talking about a specific issue and also dramas telling stories of how rights affect various situations.

The topics that have been covered by radio programmes reflect the types of issues about which clients have sought advice and include: employment law (including the rights of domestic workers here and those working in other countries); rights of people with disabilities; discrimination against women; family succession (including the rights of women to marital property and the benefits of making a will); domestic violence; adoption and child rights; access to justice and legal aid. An evaluation of the impact of these programmes is being undertaken but evidence from the radio stations suggests that listener figures are good and the paralegals and centre managers report that when asked how they found out about the service many clients cite the radio programmes.

Other methods of publicity are also used to advertise the centres, including leaflets and posters, banners and the use of megaphones on market days. However, word of mouth is probably equally important and often clients mention that a family member or ‘someone from their idir’ told them about the service.

Abebech came to the centre because she wanted advice about the law of succession. She is a widow with 12 children. She needed advice because she had been approached by three young people purporting to be the children of her former deceased husband, Zelalem, and claimed that they were entitled to a share of his estate. Zelalem died some 18 years ago. The paralegal advised her that claims of succession have a period of limitation of 15 years and prepared a statement of defence for her which she signed and took to the court. After presenting her statement and other evidence, the court accepted her plea and decided in her favour. She returned to the centre to thank the paralegal and brought 5 other people from her idir with her.

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The urban centres 11Finding suitable rooms from which to run the service is always a challenge. The location needs to be central and accessible to the target groups: that is somewhere where poor people would find it easy to get to and where the surroundings are not intimidating. There also has to be sufficient room available to provide an office, a space where clients can be interviewed in private and somewhere where others can wait their turn.

In Hawassa and Adama the project rents accommodation in the city centres and in Addis Ababa the project manager and finance office

are housed in the Leadership Institute Building where there is also a room for client interviews. Unfortunately, none of these premises has additional rooms which would allow more than one paralegal to operate at a time. Ideally premises would have two or three interview rooms as well as an office space, allowing a team of paralegals to work concurrently: some interviewing while others research and write up cases. With a full-time centre manager to support and organise and additional interview rooms, more cost effective use could be made of the trained paralegals.

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Case recording: providing a professional serviceCase recording is a most important aspect of the work of the advisers and is vital to providing a quality service and monitoring the impact of the project. A case record has been developed which has three main sections. Part one asks for details of the client. This allows us to track down a client if we need to contact him or her as a result of the interview but we also record social data which allows us to determine whether we are serving our target groups: data on age, sex, disability, long term sickness, family status, dependents, single headed household, and HIV status. Advisers are trained to be polite in asking for such details, to explain its use and assure clients of confidentiality of all information disclosed: their case will not be discussed outside of the centre and

information used for advocacy or publicity will be anonymous. Clients are asked to sign to say that they will allow the centre to keep a record of their case.

The second part of the form asks the adviser to summarise the details of the case and in the third part they indicate what advice was given and which legal manuals were checked. These details enable the centre managers to check cases and if necessary take action to correct any mistakes. Table 1 shows the people who have visited the centres. Table 2 shows the number of clients and the issues they raised in the period August 2010 – July 2011.

Table 1 Clients using the services in the urban areas, April 2011-July 2011

Total clients Female Male People with disabilities

People with HIV/AIDS Elderly Unemployed Children

301 107 194 9 7 33 106 ---

The figures are for April – July 2011 because the case record was changed in April to include the categories ‘unemployed and children’. The figures for male clients are much higher because statistics for outreach in the prisons in Hawassa and Adama are included. In all three urban centres the numbers of men and women clients are roughly equal. Other ‘categories’ can only be recorded where clients are willing to divulge this information.

Table 2 Clients and issues in the urban centres August 2010 – July 2011

Labour and employment

Family law Succession Criminal Property Contract Land Others Total

398 343 240 285 31 48 84 190 1619

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In addition, the case record enables the manager to assess the level of case work being undertaken. For example, some people simply want information while other cases demand quite extensive research or the writing of submissions or statements of defence. Records show that about half of all cases require additional work such as writing a submission, a statement of defence or, for example, negotiating on behalf of a client.

Each case record is given a number and a date and a register of cases is kept. This allows an adviser to retrieve a record if a client returns for further assistance and means that the client does not have to begin his or her story again. Cases have to be kept in locked filing cabinets in order to protect confidentiality.

The centres are well used and with improved accommodation could offer a service to a much larger number of people. Clients are extremely grateful for the service and often find it hard to believe that the service is free: “They couldn’t believe it’s for free… they think its some kind of market strategy … like colleges where you get ‘free’ training but you are supposed to pay for the certificate at the end…they don’t believe that you don’t have to pay anything.” (Seife, centre co-ordinator, Adama). There are examples of grateful clients returning to the centres with baskets of fruit and other gifts.

Referrals for legal representation and to other agencies Some cases require representation in court and the centres have begun to develop a list of local lawyers who are willing to do pro-bono work. Officially every lawyer is required to do 50 hours of pro bono

work per year and the Government is proposing to make this a legal requirement but there is no system whereby the public can identify who is available to undertake representation. By developing lists of local lawyers and acting as the point of referral, legal advice centres could be most influential in implementing the pro bono commitment. A properly organised system of legal advice centres could also support the work of the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission, the Office of the Ombudsman and the Anti Corruption Commission by ensuring that cases are correctly referred.

Legal representation in court Ato Solomon is a private attorney working in Adama. He volunteers to provide free representation in court for clients referred by paralegals in the Adama centre. To date he has won 7 cases. Most recently he represented a woman who was abandoned by her husband and who had become homeless and resorted to begging in order to support her children. Represented in court by Ato Soloman, the client’s marriage was terminated and she was granted a share of common property and maintenance. She is now able to send her children to school.

Managing the demands of the clientsReferral for legal representation is not the only need that has to be catered for. The centre co-ordinators report that many clients need and want help with negotiation or mediation.

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“They want you to do everything for them…to discuss their issue with their boss, to discuss their family matters and mediate with their husband.. we refer people to lawyers, the Ombudsman, the Anti-Corruption Office but also in divorce cases (where they need counselling) to the Ethiopian Women Lawyers Association… but we have assigned Friday afternoon for mediation… I have learned mediation skills.” (Yidneckachew, centre coordinator in Hawassa).

“I remember two HIV positive people who came to our centre… they wanted more than legal advice… they had no place to stay, no food… one of our LAC members they told me that their organisation can help so I referred them.” (Ruth, centre co-ordinator, Addis Ababa).

The outreach services in prisons From the Hawassa and Adama centres, outreach work has been conducted in the prisons initially in response to requests from the prison authorities. Our paralegals discovered that many prisoners have no access to legal advice and that many simply do not know why they are in prison or what they have been charged with. Paralegals travel from Hawassa and Adama city centres at set times of the week and the prison authorities provide rooms for interviews. Some prison administrators have participated in the trainings and work as advisers along side other paralegals. In addition to giving advice, advisers also write petitions for the courts. In the two months, July – August 2011, in Adama 87 prisoners were seen, 30 petitions written and 15 prisoners released.

Bizuayehu came to the centre covered in bruises and with a bleeding nose. She said she wanted to divorce her husband but he claimed that they were not legally married and that she had just been his housemaid. Bizuayehu was advised that the Revised Family Code recognises ‘irregular union’, even if she was not formally married. If she could provide witnesses to prove that they were living as husband and wife, she could sue to ask for the court for a termination of the relationship which has the same effect as divorce with regard to the division of property. The paralegals helped her to write a petition to the court and present evidence of irregular union. The court decided in her favour and granted her an equal share of the common property.

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Outreach services in rural areas 12Establishing rural outreach services presents considerable challenges but a main aim of the project was to try to pilot different ways of working and to identify potential models. For people living in rural areas legal help is almost non-existent. Two basic models were proposed: use trained paralegals living in the urban centres and ask them to travel out to the rural areas or train paralegals from the rural areas and let them work within their own community. The first is expensive in travel costs and ‘city people’ do not necessarily understand the local community and culture, while the main problem with the second is how to support the advisers in the rural areas and ensure that they are giving correct advice. Our experience has thrown up new ways of working and meeting needs.

The outreach in Tula, some 25 kilometres from Hawassa, is a centre for the 11 surrounding kebeles and the service is open on Tuesdays and Fridays when people travel there for the market. One of the Hawassa advisers is from Tula and she has been most influential in gaining access to the community and introducing the other paralegals. She is not a law student but speaks the local language and maintains links with the centre in Hawassa. Here use of a megaphone on market days has been found to be the most effective method of advertising and the plan is to open the service for a further day a week. In Suluta on the edge of Addis Ababa and inside the Oromia

boundary, a similar service operates on three days a week including Saturday which is the local market day. The case study describes how the combination of using a local community activist paired with a law graduate from Addis Ababa can be most effective.

A second model has been developed in Hawassa where a service has been established in the compound of the Sidama Zone High Court. This court has jurisdiction on appeals from the 21 woreda courts from the whole of Sidama Zone and hears its own direct cases when based on material jurisdiction. Rural people from a wide area who are lodging a case or making an appeal therefore have to travel to this court. The main disadvantage of this is that the service really only delivers help on cases that are appeals or pending and there is less chance to offer help with new cases.

From Adama one service is being run in Wolenchiti, some 20 kilometres from the city centre, and a further service in a much more remote place some 80 kilometres away, is being developed. All the centre managers concur that there are substantial challenges in establishing rural services as kebele and woreda officials are suspicious and would prefer it if they had been given a directive from a superior authority, although once persuaded they are often very supportive. Rural communities can be suspicious of outsiders and that is the advantage of having

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paralegals who are from within the community. The main problem, however, is in identifying local people who have sufficient education to train as advisers. Where people can be identified they are often leaders of idir or iqup and community leaders and are therefore people who are trusted and who can speak for the service. Locating suitable premises is also problematic when most houses are built from mud and grass and there is no-where to secure case records or legal manuals. “In Tula they gave us a shelter but there was no proper roof and when ever it

rained everything was soaked… the way we managed is to pay the house rent for several months…they collected the money and they made us a new roof.” (Yidneckachew, centre co-ordinator, Hawassa.)

The types of cases that occur in rural areas are also slightly different, with fewer employment or labour issues and more enquiries about succession and land. An additional chapter for the manual on land was completed to support rural work.

Table 3: Clients and issues in the rural outreach services April – July 2011

Labour and employment

Family law Succession Criminal Property Contract Land Others Total

5 19 18 17 6 2 40 21 301

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Positive action to encourage women to use the services in rural areas is very necessary. The male dominated culture is particularly prevalent in rural areas and women may not seek advice because they fear reprisals from the husband and being left without a home or resources. Raising awareness of rights, training local people as advisers and ensuring confidentiality are all necessary steps to overcome such barriers. “They think if they come to the centre,

the man will divorce them and they will have no place to go.” (Million, paralegal in Suluta)

The Tula outreach service reports similar difficulties and the importance of addressing issues of land. “In Sidama there is a culture of men owning everything especially land… so whenever there is a case of divorce or separation she goes without land”. (Yidneckachew centre, co-ordinator Hawassa)

Clients in the rural outreach centres 1st quarter April – July 2011

Total clients Female Male People with disabilities

People with HIV/AIDS Elderly Unemployed Children

270 63 207 --- --- 18 168 ---

A case study of Suluta rural outreach serviceThe centre opens three days a week and is staffed by law students who travel from Addis Ababa together with locally trained advisers. Temesegen who is a graduate of Addis Ababa University works there two days a week with his friend and colleague Million, who is the kebele vice chair. Temesegen has been a volunteer for two years and is currently working as an assistant to a lawyer. He hopes to take the Ministry of Justice exam next year and become licensed to practise. This year he took part in the training of trainers and subsequently conducted sessions on labour

and succession. Million was one of his trainees and is gaining expertise by working alongside Temesegen but he also acts as interpreter for clients who only speak Oromyfa. Million is also an important link with the community. People come to the kebele with all sorts of problems and he is able to direct them to the service. He plays an important role in encouraging women to use the service. Case records are kept locally but checked by the centre manager. Temesegen provides the link between the outreach service and the centre. Mobile phones can also be useful to check information.

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Legal advice and information in three regions of Ethiopia

Feedback and advocacy 13The issues that clients bring to the centres highlight gaps in the law and demonstrate where existing laws are constantly flouted or lack implementation. This valuable information can be used by the Government to improve the wellbeing of its population. Case records provide the evidence for briefing sheets on specific legal issues in order to advocate for review, revision or better implementation. So far briefings have been prepared on unfair dismissal, divorce, domestic violence, access to justice and the work of the project. A further series will be produced on domestic labour, human trafficking, child rights, disability rights and rural land administration.

The target audience for these briefings includes members of Federal and Regional Parliaments; government officials in the Ministries and Bureaux of Justice, Women Children and Youth Affairs, Women’s Associations, University Law Departments and Justice institutions such as the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission and the Office of the Ombudsman. The briefing sheet on access to justice, for example, includes information on new decisions made by the Court of Cessation and is helping to inform a wider audience.

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As the case study below shows, individual advocacy is a common occurance in the work of the centres. The briefing sheets attempt to convey these issues to a wider audience to effect more fundamental changes.

Amsalu is a 39 year old single mother with 6 children. She has recently become sick and is no longer able to work full time to provide for her family; only two of her children go to school and she doesn’t have enough money to buy books, give them food to attend school or provide uniforms. Amsalu herself is illiterate. She has been denied help as she is not registered with the local kebele because she does not have resident status. When she arrived at the advice centre Amsalu was crying because she didn’t know what to do. The paralegal and centre manager, after listening to her problem, wrote letters to the kebele administration and Women’s Affairs Office and prepared an affidavit signed by three witnesses from her neighbourhood to testify to her health problems and poor situation. Amsalu took her letter to the kebele authorities and after 20 days they responded and issued her with a letter that enabled her to get free medical attention and food aid for her children. The Women’s Affairs Office have also promised help in identifying an NGO that could assist with books and uniforms to enable her children to go to school.

Training can also be a an effective form of advocacy and by including people from the Offices of Women’s Affairs, social court judges, public prosecutors and others in the training, information about the law and messages about the need for reform of law or policy are conveyed to a wider audience.

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Lessons learned 14 Working with the University law departments

provides benefits for students, the universities and the public. Other types of students, such as those studying social work or community development could also contribute and benefit. Universities are able to fulfill their community service remit.

Volunteerism does work – people are willing to give their time but they need support and guidance to provide an effective and quality service.

The principles of legal aid work are important and underpin a professional service.

The Project Advisory Committee and Local Advisory Committees play a valuable role especially in targeting vulnerable groups and providing access to the community.

It is important to communicate effectively with local administrators and work with communities to build ownership and trust.

There is a large gap in terms of understanding of the law and rights; radio can help to inform and advise.

Training needs to be participative and focus on skills as well as knowledge: training should be more extensive and include negotiation and mediation skills.

Community activists and law students working together is an effective way of organising a legal aid service.

Case recording is essential to ensuring the accuracy of information, the quality of service, to assessing progress and impact and providing feedback on the impact of the law.

Outreach services in rural areas and in the prisons have identified areas of need for a legal aid service.

Legal advice centres could play an important role in making the system of pro bono referral work effective and supporting the work of other institutions such as the Human Rights Commission and the Office of the Ombudsman.

Feedback from clients provides valuable information on the efficacy and implementation of the law and contributes to a culture of evidence based advocacy.

Legal advice and information are essential to improving the lives of poor people.

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The way forward 15The project is time and geographically limited and can therefore only contribute ideas towards establishing a cost effective and efficient way of delivering a legal aid service. The funding, generously provided by DFID, has enabled us to pilot the methodology that scaled up and applied more widely could establish a legal aid service for many more in Ethiopia. Ultimately, the Government has the obligation to ensure access to justice and the means by which citizens can claim their rights. This does not mean that the Government itself has to be the provider. There are other organisations and institutions who are key players, for example, EWLA and the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission. It is possible to envisage a network of legal aid providers drawing from a number of different providers. However, in order to ensure consistency and quality of service there needs to be agreed criteria about the principles under which the service operates and the standards of service to be delivered. Likewise there needs to be agreement about geographical coverage and the focus on specific client groups.

There are other ways in which providers can co-operate and co-ordinate to provide an improved service. Training and legal manuals can be shared and a common system of case recording would provide substantial information about the problems experienced and accurate identification of areas

of the law where reform is needed or where implementation is weak. There are other avenues to explore which would contribute to a more robust and uniform provision of service. University Law departments are keen to integrate community legal service as part of legal education and there is no doubt that students benefit greatly from the experience. Without exception the students involved in our project report that working as paralegals enhances their understanding of the law, enables them to put academic theory into practice and teaches them a range of skills that are vital to becoming a good lawyer: how to research and interpret the law; how to interview and handle clients; how to make effective case records as well as practical experience in understanding and working with court procedure. It is not only law students who might benefit from this type of education. Students of social work and community development could also gain valuable practical experience that would support their academic studies. However, this process has to be supervised and properly supported if it is to be beneficial to students and clients alike. It is not a cost-free exercise.

A system of accreditation could be developed that could be available to community activists who volunteer for paralegal work. This would not only reward voluntary activity but also help to secure standards of service.

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Ethiopia does not have a system of lay representation and therefore reform of the 50 hours pro bono service demanded of licensed lawyers is required. A transparent system of registering lawyers and the hours that they provide in pro bono work is essential if this is to be the main means by which poor people gain representation in court. Links need to be established between paralegal services and lawyers in order for this to work effectively.

Finally there is the issue of funding. Whilst many donors have been generous in funding legal aid programmes, in the very long term it will be up to the Government to provide the resources for a legal aid scheme. In the meantime it is important to work towards a system that can guarantee a quality service and equitable provision.

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Legal advice and information in three regions of Ethiopia: a practical guideThe Centre for Human Rights, School of Governance Studies, Addis Ababa University 16The Centre for Human Rights (formerly known as the Institute of Human Rights) was established in October 2008 as part of the University’s shift from a primarily undergraduate institution to a research-oriented graduate university. The Centre for Human Rights (CHR) has the mission of advancing the rule of law, democratic governance, and human rights in Ethiopia through teaching, research, and community service. It is housed in the building of the Kifle Wodajo Memorial Centre for Peace, Human Rights, and Democracy and currently operates under the School of Governance Studies, recently established by the University to serve as an umbrella institution for the CHR, the Institute of Peace and Security Studies and the Institute of Federal Studies. The Master of Arts (M.A.) Program The M.A. Programme in Human Rights was launched in October 2009, one year after the creation of the CHR, with the aim of providing quality and rigorous training in human rights as a subject of multidisciplinary inquiry. The launch of the programme came amidst a widely felt need for a new breed of professionals to join the human rights camp currently dominated by legal professionals. Traditionally, human rights work has been considered the remit of lawyers as other professionals generally shied away from this important phenomenon of public life. The consequence has been the over-legalisation of human rights education with little attention given to other disciplines which have immense potential for the realisation of human rights.

A legalistic approach to human rights education helps the struggle to end impunity by providing a good understanding of accountability mechanisms for human rights violations. However, such an approach has its own limitations since it provides little understanding of the moral, cultural, and political factors that influence the realisation of human rights and the creation of a human rights culture. Hence the need for an advanced program that employs a multidisciplinary approach to human rights in content, mode of delivery and student background.

The core courses offered include: Introduction to Human Rights Law (International/National); the Philosophical and Ethical Foundations of Human Rights; the Politics of Human Rights and Democratisation; Human Rights and Development and Culture, Social Change and Human Rights. Electives include Federalism, Ethnicity and Human Rights; Peace and Transitional Justice; and the African Union and Human Rights. Students come from diverse backgrounds including higher learning institutions, the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission, civil society organisations, the media, courts and law enforcement institutions.

The Legal Advice and Information Project As described in this booklet, the project is a community service programme implemented through partnership between the CHR and the Active Learning Centre, University of Glasgow. The CHR considers the

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project as its flagship community service program and the partners are currently working hard to ensure the sustainability of the project. For students it provides practice to match academic theory and a demonstration of how human rights can be realised in the community, contributing to people’s well being.

The joint Ph.D. Program in Peace, Federalism, and Human Rights This new joint programme is designed to overcome the acute shortage of teaching and research expertise within the newly-established governance-related programmes in the University, addressing national needs in the fields of human rights, peace and federalism and is a collaboration between the CHR, the Institute of Peace and Security Studies, and the Institute of Federal Studies. Approved by the University in May 2010, the School of Governance Studies brings together the three units while maintaining their individual autonomy. The CHR has admitted its first four PhD candidates in the human rights track of the joint PhD program in August 2011. Research and Publications The CHR is in the process of launching the Ethiopian Journal of Human Rights that will publish research articles focused on human rights from the perspectives of different disciplines. There are also plans to publish text books for the Centre’s training programs and publications on thematic issues. Currently, the CHR has secured modest funds to launch the Ethiopian Journal of Human Rights. The CHR welcomes support in the form of skills and finance to ensure the quality and sustainability of its publications.

Staff Members of the Centre for Human RightsAbdurhaman Nassro (B.A.)Finance & Admin OfficerE-mail: [email protected]

Embet Mengistu Secretary

Belachew Mekuria (LL.B., M.Sc., LL.M.)Lecturer (on study leave) E-mail: [email protected]

Getahun Kassa (LL.B., LL.M.)Lecturer E-mail: [email protected]

Gil Long (BA MSc)Co-director, Active Learning Centre, University of GlasgowE-mail: [email protected]

Girmachew Alemu Aneme (LL.B., M.A., Ph.D.)Assistant Professor of Law and Head, Centre for Human Rights E-mail: [email protected]

Kalkidan Aberra (LL.B.; LL.M.)Lecturer and M.A. Program Coordinator E-mail: [email protected]

Kalkidan Negash (LL.B., LL.M.)Lecturer E-mail: [email protected]

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Ruth Solomon (B.A.)Centre Co-ordinator, Addis AbabaE-mail: [email protected]

Seifie Ayalew (LL.B., M.A.)Centre Co-ordinator, AdamaE-mail: [email protected]

Tsige Alemayehu (LL.B., LL.M.)Project Manager and Part-time Lecturer E-mail: [email protected]

Wondemagen Taddesse (LL.B., LL.M.)Lecturer and Coordinator, Research and Publications Unit Assistant Director, School of Governance Studies E-mail: [email protected]

Yidnekachew Ayele (LL.B.)Centre Co-ordinator, HawassaE-mail: [email protected]


Throughout the world, but particularly in developing countries, poor people do not have access to legal information and advice and

therefore lack access to justice. While the rich buy the services of a lawyer, the poor cannot. This booklet describes a project that has established rights advice and information centres in three areas of Ethiopia and is now piloting ways of delivering outreach services

in rural areas. The experience of the project is offered as a way of informing and improving future legal advice services in Ethiopia.

The project is a collaboration between the Centre for Human Rights in Addis Ababa University and the Active Learning Centre based in the

University of Glasgow, UK and is funded by the British Department for International Development.

www.aau.edu.et/humanrightswww.activelearningcentre.org

Legal advice and information in three regions of Ethiopia ... · PDF fileLegal advice and information in three regions of Ethiopia: a practical guide ... Contents 1 Introduction 4

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