Case backlog reduced as legal aid extended to rural areas

AFTER a long struggle, residents in rural areas are now enjoying legal aid services delivered by well-trained paralegals. Victims of human rights violations, who used to travel long distances in search of legal assistance can now access the services nearby - at ward and division levels—through paralegals.

The paralegals are being trained by legal aid organisations that received funds from the Legal Services Facility (LSF), a basket funding mechanism, which provides financial support to legal aid providers in Tanzania.

Recruitment and training of paralegals, using a comprehensive National Paralegal Training Manual, is going on. LSF officials say that presently around 2,500 paralegals are in training, but already functional and deployed to provide legal aid services in 110 districts of the country.

“There is a bright future for rural people, who have suffered for years – denied access to their economic and social rights, experienced all sorts of brutality pioneered by law enforcement agents and local government leaders,” said Justin Damian, the chairman of Investigative Journalists Union of Tanzania (IJUTA).

“On top of that, legal aid services offered by paralegals will also relieve rural women from sexual abuse, beatings by husbands and so forth,” he added in an exclusive interview with this paper.

Experts say a long-time struggle by rural people to access justice has been held back by limited funds to facilitate paralegal training and uncoordinated and unstructured paralegal training, among other forces.

These shortfalls have been subjecting rural dwellers to multiple problems—deprivation of their land, divorce, inheritance and matrimonial rights, just to mention a few.

However, in the wake of on-going paralegal training sponsored by the LSF, rural dwellers have begun seeing some light ahead, as legal services have moved closer to their localities.

Saulo Malauri, the Executive Director of Bukobabased Mama’s Hope Organisation for Legal Assistance (MHOLA), said paralegal training had greatly expanded legal aid service delivery in Kagera Region, reaching out to a wider community. Mama’s Hope is one of the 40 legal aid organizations, which secured LSF grants for the implementation of paralegal-related projects countrywide.

With LSF funding, he said, the organization has managed to recruit about 70 paralegals in various districts— Muleba, Bukoba Rural, Misenyi – who have been dispatched to provide services down to the grassroots, thus enabling many disadvantaged groups of people to access justice.

“Many disputes are now settled at ward level, since we have competent paralegals, who can handle and settle these problems,” said Malauri, adding: “cases which were previously forwarded to our head-office in Bukoba Township, are now resolved right there.”

The increased number of trained paralegals, according to the Mama’s Hope Director, has helped to reduce the caseload and substantially improved the access of rural people to legal services across the Kagera Region.

Despite these positive strides forward, paralegals do experience some problems in the execution of their duties, as local executives are not always happy with their work, according to Malauri.

The current set up, that’s ward tribunals which are managed by local executives, see paralegals with a degree of suspicion, he noted, adding that: “paralegals provide free services while tribunals’ executives charge their clients or sometimes even demand bribes from them.”

This has forced many needy people to opt for free services and abandon corrupt tribunals. The situation has created in some cases antagonism and misunderstandings between the paralegals and local executives, preventing smooth and efficient operation of paralegals. I urge paralegals and ward tribunals to work together and create mutual understanding, as both serve the community.

Linkage and collaboration between the two is highly needed. There is space for both to make a positive contribution to increasing access to justice to the communities they serve and also MHOLA will contribute towards creating a positive working climate between local institutions and paralegals.

Uti Mwang’amba, the Executive Director of the Centre for Widows and Children Assistance, one of the LSF grantees, said there were many unresolved disputes in Mara and Musoma rural areas before nation-wide and comprehensive recruitment of paralegals started.

However, after receiving LSF funds, her Centre trained a number of paralegals “who are now solving these unresolved disputes.” “Paralegals deal with these problems themselves, they only forward to us difficult and complex cases, which require higher level legal expertise,” said the director, noting that: “in fact, paralegals have reduced travel distances for rural victims and have enabled them to access justice more close to their door-steps.”

She, however, said paralegals were discharging their responsibilities on a voluntary basis, without a single cent for bus fare, food or any basic need, saying such a situation discouraged many paralegals and reduced their efficiency.

She called on LSF and other players to think of a ‘token’ for paralegals. Executive Director of the Tanzania Women and Children Welfare Centre, Edda Malik, said that paralegals recruited by the organization helped to expose many cases related to gender-based violence, including rape and forward them to the Police Force’s gender-desks.

“Paralegals have assisted many victims of rape to get their rights, something which was impossible before extensive paralegal training funded by LSF took place,” she said. Malik, however, emphasized that sometimes rape and related cases are not treated with the care and caution required at the police gender desks in Ilala and Temeke districts, which she said had contributed to victims’ denial of their rights. The gender desks are a crucially important facility that the police offer in order to deal with gender based violence.

The gender desks make a significant contribution to the protection of women’s rights in the country, however, according to Malik, “sometimes victims are not well treated by officers in-charge of some of these desks, suspects are using money to manipulate cases in their favour and at the end of the day, the victims come back to us (paralegal units/centres).”

The centre’s Director, called for reshaping of the gender desks’ structures and systems which will ensure an even better protection of victims of gender based violence. Paralegals trained by the Tanzania Women Lawyers Association (TAWLA) have managed to assist 412 people out of legal problems in courts of law, according to the organisation’s executive director, Tike Mwambiile.

Besides support to the victims, she said, paralegals offered legal and related education (through community conversation approach) to around 13,500 people in 11 districts across the country.

“However, what discourages us is that the paralegals are not formally, legally recognized, which in the eyes of some makes them look like ‘conmen and women”. They are demoralized by lack of legal recognition, making their life often more than difficult,” she said, urging the government to fasttrack the tabling of the Legal Aid Bill, which will recognise paralegals, among other things.

Overall, extensive paralegal training has eased access to justice, extended services delivery, thus simplifying life for vulnerable poor women and men in the rural settings, who had to walk long distances searching for their rights.

 Daily News