En lokal NGO er gået sammen med det US-baserede Carter Center om at løse juridiske sager og undervise indbyggerne i det vestafrikanske land om deres helt grundlæggende rettigheder.
GANTA, 23. august, 2012 (IRIN): “We don’t get much sleep now because there are people calling night and day,” says Jesco Davis, who represents the Catholic Justice and Peace Commission (JPC), a local NGO partnering with the US-based Carter Center.
The JPC includes a network of Community Legal Advisers (CLAs) who provide alternative dispute resolution.
In a typical day, Davis, who represents the Commission in Ganta town, some 270km northeast of the capital, Monrovia, will speak on behalf of a man he believes was wrongly detained for illegal trespassing, visit the local police station and magistrate’s court, and give updates on a convoluted land dispute to a rapt audience in a local tea shop.
Land disputes are particularly prevalent in Ganta and the surrounding Nimba County, where poorly funded local authorities struggle to deal with competing land and property claims.
Many of the disputes are war-related, with people displaced by conflict trying to regain property lost when they fled their homes. Adjudication is often difficult due to lack of documentation and conflicting oral testimony. “You do not mess with this land business,” Davis said.
Liberia’s long-running civil war ended in 2003, but most people are still coping with the legacy of the conflict.
Læs videre på: http://www.irinnews.org/Report/96156/LIBERIA-Out-of-court-justice
Begynd fra: Davis and his colleagues on…
