Frequently Asked Questions

From MicroJustice

• Is Microjustice justice for minor problems?

For some, the word Microjustice seems to refer to small problems, like the ones experienced by consumers. The ‘micro’ in Microjustice, however, stands for the bottom up approach to the actual delivery of legal protection: local development of small-scale solutions for big-scale, urgent justice needs. Microjustice is intended to become just as real and important as microcredit. It should contribute to making life much easier for the billions of people who have no access to justice now, because, although on paper they have rights, either they and/or their governments may lack the resources to pay for the delivery of the extensive services that codes and case law promise them. In our experience, people in developing countries understand that message and for them, the association with microcredit means that they start thinking of a justice system that is accessible to them.

• Is Microjustice a form of second rate justice?

The goal is to provide real justice. Microjustice does not change any of the principles of justice. Microjustice is about an efficient organization of access to the justice system, facilitating an effective meeting of supply and demand. This can be achieved by gaining more insight in the functionality of the different components of the services that form the supply chain of justice. Too many efforts to improve the legal system have taken for granted that justice is justice and that a court should provide what a court should provide. Microjustice is all about the very essence of justice. We should reverse-engineer justice and courts. In doing so, we can come to the types of insight, mentioned above. Dispute resolution consists of a mixture between and improvement in communication, facilitation of negotiations, organization of incentives for both parties to cooperate with the process, fact-finding, establishment of norms for distributive justice, decisions on issues that split the parties and, coordination of enforcement. Similarly, criminal justice can be taken apart, looking at what it does for people. Nowadays, it includes mechanisms that deliver general prevention, fact-finding, reparation, healing and recognition for victims, appropriate treatment for some types of convicted criminals, and retribution. Delivering legal services with a focus on what is needed, and not only on what the law says, will lead to justice of a higher quality delivered to many more people. Moreover, developing cross-border platforms for legal services can lead to higher quality, because experiences and solutions will be exchanged. Unsatisfactory local practices will be increasingly exposed, because users and supervisors of systems can see them and compare them with practices elsewhere.

• Is Microjustice a danger for the values behind the justice system?

No. Microjustice is all about the essential values of procedural justice, distributive justice, retributive justice, and restorative justice that make respectful cooperation between people possible. These values can be reinforced if justice is done and is seen to be done. Transparency, neutrality, independence, predictability, and objectivity are also key. What is new in Microjustice is that it is realistic, open-minded, and innovative about the ways to achieve this: through the acts of people who are motivated to deliver justice where it is needed.

• Can Microjustice cope with power?

Not in any definitive way. Powerful and corrupt people may always find ways around the system for their own personal advantage. Microjustice can make a difference, however, by providing transparent information on norms and practices and therewith uncovering corruption. Comparison across borders may also help to curb abuse of power.

• Can Microjustice be developed across borders and across cultures?

Justice needs are rather similar. Solutions also are rather similar. Even divorce “proceedings” across cultures and countries have certain commonalities. Procedural justice, distributive justice, restorative justice, and restorative justice are issues everywhere. Comparatists and legal anthropologists have learned to focus on the differences. Because legal systems develop in some isolation from each other, they have followed different trajectories. But there seems to be no reason why legal systems of different countries or different legal origins could not profit from economies of scale across borders. Multinationals have painstakingly learned to deliver services across borders that cater for the same human needs. They now know what can be standardized and what should be adjusted to local circumstances. Law firms work across borders as well. So why not try it for the justice needs of the poor? This is especially true for the poor living in smaller developing countries, where economies of scale within the country cannot be found.

• Is there not too much justice already?

Nowadays, lawyers and legal systems do not have an unquestioned reputation. Issues like deregulation, the tort system, worries about the administrative costs related to government, and overburdened courts are high on the political agendas. There is no question, however, that some legal system is necessary and that access to justice is essential in situations like the ones we identified as the most urgent justice needs. Moreover, Microjustice strives to make rules more accessible and to investigate the essence of procedures. Diminishing the administrative costs for citizens is exactly what Microjustice is about.

• Does Microjustice stimulate an excessive claim culture?

There could be worries that Microjustice brings waves of people to the courts, making life miserable for companies and governments alike. There are many possible answers to such objections. First, the problem is that a (sizeable) segment of the population has no access to justice because it is too difficult and expensive to obtain it. If work is done on that issue specifically, it is implicit and justified that more services will have to be delivered. Secondly, poor people in developing countries (the segment of the population established to have no access to justice) live on approximately US$2 a day. These people will certainly think carefully before bringing a case forward (as there are costs, however small, associated with Microjustice). Thirdly, there is no evidence that people who have the resources are systematically burdening courts with trivial cases.

The real problem is costs: legal costs, uncertainty, and damage to reputation during the time it takes the existing legal system to process a case. That is a problem that Microjustice will help to tackle. Finally, the best answer is to leave it to a well-functioning market for justice. If interventions are neutral, transparent, predictable, speedily/timely and are performed against costs fully covered by fees from the disputants while reflecting the principles of justice, then it can be left to the plaintiffs to decide whether that intervention is worth its price.

• Shouldn’t justice be tailor-made?

Providing justice is often seen as a pure people’s business, deliverable as a person-to-person service, tailored to the parties and their circumstances. This personalized picture of justice is attractive, but it also defines justice as a luxury good, that is outside the means of most people. It is an extremely unrealistic view, if justice should also be a more or less free service for all citizens in all their conflicts. One insight from Prahalad and Hart’s principles is that justice may be standardized, just like many other services, making use of economies of scale. Modern technologies, such as internet and mobile phones, make it possible to develop programs and services for entire countries or regions. In this sense, delivering justice is similar to delivering credit. Personalized legal services should be possible, but as an add-on for the ones that want to pay for it. Just like in the credit-business.

• Can the market be trusted when it comes to justice?

Remember: the market already delivers most justice services by turn-over, by number of interventions, or by any other measure. It certainly delivers the substitutes for formal justice that develop spontaneously in refugee camps, villages, and settlements outside the major cities of the Third World. Governments and Courts all over the world better accept their limited role in the delivery of the interventions that make justice real. They could do a better job by developing their monitoring and supervisory role, which is essential. Markets cannot be trusted if they are left by themselves. Markets need rules of the game and supervision. Only then suppliers on the market can earn the trust of the users of their services.

• What can the market deliver?

We will not know the answer to that unless we have tried it. It seems unlikely that the provision of justice services should follow a completely different trajectory from all other products and services. Usually, they follow a path of competition, innovation, and attracting more and more clients, creating access to the service for these people. But this is a complicated market, which has not yet been thoroughly analyzed. Moreover, some government intervention is necessary. Cooperation between market and government, however, needs to be optimized, supported by research institutions and others who can fuel the innovation process. A problem may be that neutral legal services have a network character. They work better if more people use the system, but this requires a high initial investment. What we can also predict, however, is that it will be most difficult to reach the poorest of the poor. The bottom of the pyramid is very broad. There, millions of people need access to justice. They do have a limited purchasing power, however, and can also invest time, if the services fit their needs and are understandable to them. Economies of scale can be reached. The poorest of the poor may still depend on subsidized legal services due to more complicated problems/issues and much more limited resources. Entrepreneurs working for profit will not see this as the biggest of opportunities. However, paying for legal aid for 5% of the population in order to help them through a system that is accessible for a low fee is different than proposing to help 50% of the population to cope with a slow and complicated system designed for realities with much higher income levels. Therefore, humanitarian aid agencies will still have a role to play, but probably for a more focused group of people.

• Isn’t justice is an exclusive matter of the State?

The role of the market, measured by numbers of clients served and by annual-turnover, is already much larger than the role of the State in meeting justice needs. There is no element of the norms and interventions of the justice system that can only be provided by the States. Sometimes, state institutions have a comparative advantage in organizing the type of services that meet justice needs, sometimes market parties. The challenge is to let the State and the market cooperate in an optimal manner, looking at all incentives by all relevant participants. Return to the top

• What can donors do?

Applying the principles of Prahalad to the justice sector changes the approach of donor interventions. Traditional models of providing access to rights in a development context are based on a major donor support of legal aid programs, starting on a pilot scale. Efforts attempting to make legal aid structural (covering the country and providing structural legal solutions) and sustainable (permanent) often fail. As we have seen, these models sometimes use conditions on which Microjustice differs. For instance, some donors forbid contributions by users, or they require that services are bought from preferred partners, such as law firms and legal experts from donor countries. Instead, Microjustice Programs by donors will concentrate on trying to establish justice with minor investments, using less-skilled (inexpensive) labour, and providing paid legal services. In this way, aid in the area of access to justice can lead to structural and sustainable improvements, because locals can make a living from the services. Donor’s funding may be helpful for the development phase, the product identification, the general program costs (updating the website, research, documentaries etc), and for field-work in post-conflict zones where sustainability may still be difficult or impossible to achieve. Ideally, in the long term, the general program costs should also be covered by the clients. If that is not possible, the sources of funding should be made permanent. Justice should be there to stay.