As a part of a joint initiative between IBJ India and Delhi Prisons to spread awareness among jail inmates about their rights and duties as prescribed under the law, a team consisting of Mr. Ajay Verma, IBJ Senior Fellow and Advocate, and Ms. Pankhuri Mehandiratte, Advocate, visited Central Jail No.3 on 31 March 2015. Tihar Jail has been identified as Asia’s largest prison complex, housing more than 12,000 under trial and convicted belonging to all age groups.

The event saw an active participation of over 200 inmates who had been charged for petty offences and were waiting for their trial to be completed. The main purpose of the event was to make the inmates aware about the provisions of bail and surety bonds and the juvenile justice act while informing them of their legal rights and duties. Mr. Sanjay, the prison welfare officer appointed by the Government as per Delhi Prisons Act, 2000, also contributed to the interactive discussions with the inmates.

Mr. Ajay Verma and Ms. Pankhuri Mehndiratta were given a warm reception by the prison administration. Mr. Ajay Verma discussed the provisions of bail in bailable and non-bailable cases, addressing the common problem of conditions of bail and surety bonds. A brief discussion followed about the provisions of the existing Juvenile Justice Act. Many inmates were under the false impression that the lawyers appointed by the Legal Services Authorities are state lawyers and that they will not get proper representation as they are being prosecuted by the state. Mr. Ajay Verma clarified this misconception after sharing his 13 years of experience working as a Legal Aid Lawyer. The inmates were also informed about their right to free legal aid. This event also introduced the ‘Information Booklet’, developed by IBJ India and Delhi Prisons to further inform the inmates of their legal rights.

Many inmates were hesitant to disclose their details at first, but IBJ India was able to identify 10 people who were in need of legal aid. IBJ will be returning to meet with them one-on-one in order to ensure that they receive proper representation.

The legal rights awareness event proved to be a huge success. IBJ India is delighted to have the support of the prison authorities and will work to strengthen the bond established between the prison administration and IBJ lawyers. The event proved to be another important step towards strengthening the legal justice system in India.

By Ritvik Mawkin, Intern, IBJ India

IBJ’s first lawyer training in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s 2nd largest city, in May 2011

International Bridges to Justice (IBJ) first established its Zimbabwe Country Office with the Harare-based DRC, which has quickly become a crucial legal hub for the entire nation and has consequently led to increased cooperation with local civil society. The program was established in 2008, the same year a government power-sharing agreement was signed to facilitate the adoption of new legislation, particularly in the field of human rights. This has created an unprecedented opportunity for effective human rights enforcement.

Since the beginning of this project, IBJ Zimbabwe has already come a long way. The police and prison officials have grown more accepting of lawyers’ interventions for the accused. Most notably, IBJ’s influence on Zimbabwe’s practices and legislation as evident by the institution of a free bail system, where low-level offenders are freed from pre-trial detention on condition of appearing for trial.  Your donations made this possible. Please click here to donate again and be part of their transformative work.

Quick Facts:

• 2013 Prison Population: 16,902 (129 per 100,000)
• IBJ-mobilized lawyers took on 108 pretrial detainee cases between December 2009 and October 2010
• In 2010, there was a 42% increase in IBJ-trained lawyers meeting the minimum competency standards for representation of accused persons
• Further, a 81% increase in preventing the use of coerced statements in criminal proceedings was seen
• In 2011 and 2012, IBJ lawyers represented more than 150 indigent accused who otherwise would have had no access to counsel

IBJ’s relentless fight for legal rights has been recognised in a positive light as Innocent Maja, Country Fellow, was featured as a facilitator of a January 2011 panel discussion on the abolition of the death penalty in Zimbabwe. In the same year, IBJ legal fellows appeared and were interviewed on the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation’s SFM “Wheels of Justice” radio program, which is estimated to reach a half-million listeners. However, the IBJ program works not only on the national level, but takes measures to reach out to smaller communities in remote, rural provinces.

At the September 2014 roundtable meeting, the IBJ Zimbabwe fellows were able to address the main causes of the rise of corruption in the system such as poor remuneration for legal practitioners and other key justice stakeholders, general decline in morals and ethics, a culture of greed and self-enrichment, poverty, and abuse of power by state officials.

In order to consolidate and sustain progress through this next phase, IBJ has defined three imperatives for its future work in Zimbabwe:

• Expand the Defender Resource Centers to meet the country’s legal representation needs
• Continue and expand capacity building training of legal professionals
• Expand the reach of legal rights awareness campaigns to empower indigent Zimbabweans to claim their rights

This is why we are calling for your donations to IBJ Zimbabwe this week. Your continued support for International Bridges to Justice and IBJ Zimbabwe is the only way we can guarantee all citizens the right to competent legal representation, the right to be protected from cruel and unusual punishment, and the right to a fair trial throughout the country. We cannot thank you enough for your generosity.

For more on the Zimbabwe Program:

http://www.ibj.org/where-we-work/zimbabwe/

http://www.ibj.org/category/programs/zimbabwe/

http://www.ibj.org/meet-ibj/our-team/team-zimbabwe/

After Harshi Perera received her law degree from the Open University of Sri Lanka in 2008 with a specialization in human rights, she began formally assisting Janasansadaya (JS) by responding to human rights violations and cases. She developed a particular passion advocating for the rights of children and women, perceiving these groups as some of the most vulnerable in Sri Lanka. Now 2010 Asia JusticeMakers Fellow Harshi Perera reflects on the competition and how far she’s come.

H.M. Harshi Chitrangi Perera

2010 Asia JusticeMakers Fellow, Sri Lanka

August 29, 2014

What made you apply for IBJ’s JusticeMakers Competition?

{To} work for another human being and make a difference. We needed a grant to do this.

What were some of the initial challenges you faced in implementing your work?

 The malpractices and delays in justice system, along with the {the lack of} professionals attached to it, proved difficult.  Criticism from the media when trying to give bail to a LTTE suspect also caused hindrances.

What were you able to achieve with your grant of $5,000?

What I achieved was more valuable than $5,000. I successfully fulfilled the goal, releasing five women pre-trial detainees from the Welikada Female Prison Ward.  One woman was an eight year pre-trial detainee, while another woman was released with her baby. We were able to help two other women, one whom had been remanded on fabrication of charge by the police and another woman who is a rape survivor whom had been remanded for not appearing before the court for five years.

What have you gained from joining the international community of JusticeMakers Fellows?

 Experience and knowledge.

As a recipient of IBJ’s JusticeMakers Competition, what advice would you give to those looking to apply?

Work Hard. Have a dream of what you are going to achieve. Work double than the grant of $5,000. Work to raise voices instead of money.

Jasmine Wang

From June to October 2013, IBJ China held its pilot Series of Training (SoT) in Beijing under its Defender Empowerment Series (DES) project. The SoT is a program of eight training sessions spread over four months aimed specifically at young lawyers just beginning a career in criminal defense. Potential applicants were expected to have passed the bar exam, to have worked less than three years in criminal justice, and a commitment to taking legal aid cases. Applications were submitted from across China and eventually 40 promising lawyers were selected to participate; many had to travel by air or overnight train just to attend the trainings.

 A major draw for the participating lawyers was the opportunity to learn from the DES Trainers, all of whom were invited for their specific expertise. These DES Trainers themselves had participated in a weeklong IBJ training focused on fostering highly interactive, case-based teaching methods. In addition, their experience in the field of criminal justice allowed them to provide participants with extremely practical and immediately useful skills.

Lawyer Meng was an SoT participant who described how fortunate he felt for joining the program when he was still in the middle of his apprenticeship, “[As an apprentice]… I had an enormous caseload and there was a risk for the work to become mindless. Copying case reports word for word into my own notes, meeting clients and taking notes verbatim—I could easily lose focus of my work. Suddenly, after beginning the SoT, I was excited to put new skills I had learned directly into practice. It substantively helped to improve the way I take cases now.”

For Meng, the most useful skills he acquired were the ones directly related to his daily tasks—no detail was too small. As there is no standardized style guide yet in China, he specifically expressed gratitude to Trainer Zhang who taught him the exact font, text size, spacing between paragraphs and effective wording to use when compiling a defense submission for the court.

Meng states, “I learned to create a note-taking system for interviewing clients that ensured I would ask for the key points necessary to build my case and to establish trust with my clients. For evidence, I now use the Diagram Analysis Method that Trainer Zhang taught me that has added enormous credibility to my submissions.”

Recently, in a case where the client was arrested for fraud, Meng made use the Diagram Analysis Method and tabulated each piece of evidence while providing an objective summary of its relationship to the case and its monetary value. This thorough analysis of evidence and the defense’s valuation of the accused’s crime was quickly accepted by the prosecution. According to Meng, “…the prosecution could tell that our work was of high-quality and it helped build their trust in us. Because of this, they supported our argument that the client had surrendered—a mitigating factor for the sentencing—and submitted a more lenient opinion to the court.”

In the year since attending SoT, Meng finished is apprenticeship and his career has made great strides. Along with his associate Lawyer Ma—also an SoT participant—in July 2014 Meng launched a pro bono clinic, “Criminal Legal Aid for the Weak,” serving vulnerable populations in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei province. Meng states, “After watching my teachers give so much to me and helping me achieve a level of confidence in my work, I really wanted to use these skills and give back to the community around me.”

Beyond providing a highly interactive training, SoT focused itself on fostering community and a sense of solidarity between colleagues in the work of criminal justice. This past weekend, sixteen SoT lawyers reunited for a salon organized by IBJ and reflected upon the effectiveness of the trainings and how their own careers have progressed since then. SoT Trainer Yi remarked to his students, “As individual lawyers, we cannot do so much or accomplish what we want from our careers. It’s only as a community of collaborators that we can really tap our potential as criminal justice lawyers.”

With the feedback and response from the Beijing pilot, IBJ plans to expand SoT in 2015 to four new locations throughout China.

Living Conditions in Kampong Thom Province

Nou Chandeth, IBJ’s Legal Fellow in the Province

IBJ Reaching Those Most in Need

Pictures graciously provided by IBJ lawyer and investigator Kan Seng Houth.