Need and importance




Anoop Kumar, a researcher of Legal Literacy Mission, says in his study, "the legislature of the state and the parliament, while enacting the legislation, consider the objectives of it. Some laws lay down the substantive rights of the masses and some touch upon the procedural aspect of certain laws. But it is due to lack of awareness of beneficiaries that most of the legislations are ineffective at the stage of their execution."

Legal awareness can empower people to demand justice, accountability and effective remedies at all levels. Legal needs always stand to become crisis oriented because their ignorance prevents them from anticipating legal troubles and approaching a lawyer for consultation and advice in time. This magnifies the impact of their legal troubles and difficulties when they come.

Without (legal) literacy people can get intimidated and alienated from law. This may evolve into a situation which results in people coming into conflict with the law, or being unable to obtain help from it. Courts have acknowledged the barrier raised by a lack of literacy to asserting guaranteed rights effectively. Low literacy may block people’s access to justice. At times, literacy requirements have been used to block access to rights and benefits.

Goals and objectivesedit

Goals of the legal literacy programs can be broadly divided in three types. Namely educational, competency and critical.

In Reading the Legal World, author Laird Hunter expects legal literacy to achieve: "People using the legal system must be able to guide themselves through a process that they understand ... and, at appropriate places along the way."

  • recognize they have a legal right or responsibility, in order to exercise or assume it;
  • recognize when a problem or conflict is a legal conflict and when a legal solution is available;
  • know how to take the necessary action to avoid problems and where this is not possible, how to help themselves appropriately;
  • know how and where to find information on the law, and be able to find information that is accessible to them,
  • know when and how to obtain suitable legal assistance;
  • have confidence that the legal system will provide a remedy, and
  • understand the process clearly enough to perceive that justice has been done

Depending on the goals there can be a number of objectives for legal literacy programs.

  • List of possible objectives:
    • raising awareness and building capacity
    • training of trainers
    • community education and legal empowerment
    • exposing law students to social justice work
    • strengthening community solidarity and supporting grass-roots advocacy

Methods adopted to promote legal awarenessedit

There have been many cases where governments have promoted long-term legal literacy missions or awareness campaigns. An example of this is when institutions arrange legal literacy events.

Legal awareness is also achieved through camps, lectures, and interactive workshops or crash programs on the essential and elementary legal laws. Among the general public, many wish to spend time listening to scholars on contemporary issues that have significant bearing on the rights and livelihood of ordinary people. Other methods are road shows, radio talks, street and theatre plays, as well as the publication of relevant books, periodicals, posters, and charts that deal with particular laws, the distribution of pamphlets, brochures, and stickers, the display of paintings, illustrations in comics, and other ways to ensure publicity for various legal mobilisation activities.

Strategically located display boards in public places (railway stations, bus stations, market places, in front of major government offices and police stations) are also used to help government officials, police, and the public to understand the spirit of law.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Definition of Legal awareness

Image
According to the American Bar Association, Commission on Public Understanding, legal awareness is "the ability to make critical judgments about the substance of the law, the legal process, and available legal resources and to effectively utilize the legal system and articulate strategies to improve it is legal literacy". The Canadian Bar Association (1992, 23) defines legal literacy as "the ability to understand words used in a legal context, to draw conclusions from them, and then to use those conclusions to take action." With little change to the Multiple Action Research Group's (MARG, an NGO working for the promotion of legal awareness) definition, legal awareness can be defined as "critical knowledge of legal provisions and processes, coupled with the skills to use this knowledge to respect and realize rights and entitlements".
Read more

Legal awareness

Image
Legal awareness , sometimes called public legal education , is the empowerment of individuals regarding issues involving the law. Legal awareness helps to promote consciousness of legal culture, participation in the formation of laws and the rule of law. Public legal education, sometimes called civics education, comprises a range of activities intended to build public awareness and skills related to law and the justice system. This term also refers to the fields of practice and study concerned with those activities, and to a social and professional movement that advocates greater societal commitment to educating people about the law. Anna-Marie Marshall explains that "in order to realize their rights, people need to take the initiative to articulate them. This initiative, in turn, depends on the availability and the relevance of legal schema to people confronting problems." This is because laws exist as part of a larger organizational ecosystem in which the interests of the
Read more

7)Described: What to expect on Republic Morning 2021and what not to

India Republic Day -- Republic Day 2021: In 2020it was the agitation up against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). Nowthousands of farmersprimarily from Punjab and Haryanahave been camping at the sides of Delhi for more than a couple of monthsdemanding the Centre repeal the three farm laws. For your second year in a short periodRepublic Day celebrations in the national capital will be kept under the shadow of flaming protests against laws approved by the Centre. In 2020it was the agitation up against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). This timethousands of farmersprimarily from Punjab and Haryanahave been camping at the sides of Delhi for more than a couple of monthsdemanding the Centre repeal the three farm laws. That years Republic Day ornement will also be the first major open public event in pandemic occasions. What is new this year The expensive vacation event will be pared down the number of spectatorsthe size of walking contingents and other side sights. The spectator siz
Read more