NCJ Number
144737
Date Published
1992
Length
40 pages
Annotation
This booklet describes the role of community advice services and paralegals in providing a legal and social welfare system for underserviced communities in South Africa.
Abstract
Community advice services include advice offices, crisis centers, detainee support committees, legal resource centers, repression and human rights monitoring groups, and progressive lawyers and medical organizations. Paralegals are community workers and volunteers who give advice on a range of practical and political issues that involve knowledge of the law and legal processes. The three primary roles played by community advice services and paralegals are in the areas of service, development, and human rights. However, lack of funding, resources, training, contact with other agencies, recognition by the community and by lawyers, and assistance from other professionals has hampered efforts to build an accessible justice and social welfare system. Proposed principles for a new justice and social welfare system in South Africa emphasize government responsibility and funding, national decentralization and local centralization of services, an interdisciplinary approach, and nonracial and nonsexist working and employment guidelines.