CONTEXT
Nearly half of the people in Latin America see their human right to access to justice violated. They are unable to exercise their rights as citizens using means established in law. Both nationally and internationally, however, the OAS countries have committed to ensuring that all sections of the population have access to justice. Judicial reforms implemented over the past two decades have failed to meet these commitments to a satisfactory degree. Agreements under international law on improving access to justice have not fed into the reforms. In priority normative and institutional areas, there is a need to strengthen regional principles of access to justice. The principles laid down in the American Convention on Human Rights (ACHR), for example, have not been sufficiently taken into consideration. National reform efforts are undertaken with little reference to regional agreements. As a result, it is not possible to provide effective impetus and guidance at regional level to raise the quality of individual states’ judicial reforms, which focus more on operational efficiency.
OBJECTIVE
Regional standards for access to justice feed into judicial reforms in selected member states of the Organization of American States (OAS).
APPROACH
In future, the national justice policies of selected OAS member states – Colombia, Costa Rica, Honduras, Mexico and Peru – are to be aligned with uniform regional standards and be verifiable using an appropriate set of indicators. The programme is supporting this process with three closely interlinked service packages:
1. developing a regional acquis with respect to access to justice
2. strengthening inter-American justice and the regional body of established court rulings
3. promoting an efficient and independent judiciary through national actors.
To systematise regional norms, principles and standards for access to justice, the OAS receives special support from the supranational Quality of Justice network, as well as recommendations from the European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice. The development of a body of established court rulings by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and the comparison of these with decisions made by national courts will also contribute to these systematisation efforts.
The development of regional quality standards for access to justice requires both an appraisal of the existing body of international regional law and a comparison with legal practice at national level. Working groups to promote regional law at national level are being established for this purpose, and are striving to make the right to access to justice a reality.
The results of this work are disseminated through specialised institutions such as the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights (Instituto Interamericano de Derechos Humanos, IIDH) and the Justice Studies Centre of the Americas (Centro de Estudios de Justicia de las Américas, CEJA). Training on legal methods is conducted and further developed here.
RESULTS
The foundation has now been laid for developing the frame of reference. The entire body of supranational norms related to access to justice has been reviewed to this end. A methodology has been developed for creating standards based on these norms and is currently in use, with a focus on a body of established court rulings by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. Progress has also been made in developing quality indicators, the design of which has been discussed in two supranational forums.
Working groups to promote inter-American law have been set up in Honduras and Peru, where initial efforts to make reference to standard-setting at regional level have been addressed in national discussions on judicial policy reform.