This year, on February 7th in Tunis, HiiL gathered judicial experts, judges, lawyers, academics and representatives of civil society, to dive deep into priority categories of legal problems faced by Tunisians. The sessions’ aim was to present and discuss the findings of the Justice Needs and Satisfaction (JNS) survey HiiL conducted at the end of last year.
The triangulation session has been marked by open discussions with a distinguished group of experts who reviewed in detail the most critical legal problems faced by Tunisians. This helped us to deepen and widen our understanding of these issues and it has provided the participants with precious time to reflect on the findings in the light of the fundamental achievements in the Tunisian legal system since January 14, 2011.
Several years after the Tunisian 2010-2011 revolutionary movement many ideals have spread across the country. One of the goals has been to reform the legal system and over the past years Tunisians have demonstrated their keen interest in the development of their justice sector. They have worked relentlessly to build the capacity to understand and address the justice needs of the people. HiiL has supported them throughout this process while closely collaborating with the Dutch Embassy in Tunis and other relevant stakeholders.
The legal issues faced by Tunisians are mainly connected to employment, public services, land and social welfare. Having an overview of these problems significantly helps the decision-makers in designing strategies which properly address them. An open space for discussions also fostered conversation about general legal problems such as access to justice, trust in judicial institutions, dispute resolution strategies, the quality of procedures and outcomes and costs of the justice journeys as experienced by residents.
A full and comprehensive report will be published within the next few weeks here. HiiL is grateful for all the valuable feedback it has received from the experts who attended the session. This helps us to finalise the report which we view as an evidence-based eye-opener for discussion and cooperation in justice innovation in Tunisia. Our hope is to strengthen our ties with the justice representatives in Tunisia and to help the citizens identify and materialise their ideas on the innovation of their legal system.
To make legal empowerment into a reality, collaboration between the Ministry of Justice in Tunisia, the Bar Association, vibrant civil society organisations and national and international stakeholders is therefore needed. Thus, it takes a strong partnership to start, but a planned action and commitment to move forward. Both are possible since the data is now available to inspire and secure access to justice in Tunisia.
