Between Law and Society: Paralegals and the Provision of Primary Justice Services in Sierra Leone

Published by the Open Society Justice Initiative, Between Law and Society: Paralegals and the Provision of Primary Justice Services in Sierra Leone focuses on Timap for Justice, highlighting cases which include a man cheated by a corrupt local chief and a woman accused of being a witch.

Timap, co-founded by the Open Society Justice Initiative and the Sierra Leonean National Forum for Human Rights, is a pioneering organization training and deploying paralegals in the country's rural areas. In a nation with five million people and only 100 lawyers, the need for their services is acute.

Timap's paralegals address justice problems that arise between people and the authorities, such as corruption in government services, as well as disputes between individuals, including instances of domestic violence and failure to pay child support. The paralegals use mediation, advocacy and community organizing to resolve such problems. Their efforts are complicated by Sierra Leone's dualist legal structure, which features both a formal legal system of courts and lawyers based on the English model, and a customary system based on traditional approaches to justice. Timap's paralegals apply their knowledge of formal law and their familiarity with local customs to navigate between the two legal systems.

Between Law and Society is available for download below or from the Justice Initiative website.

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