Justice for Children, Justice for AllJustice Champions of Change

For many years, the siblings of children who are removed from their homes by social services in Scotland have had no rights to attend or contribute to those children’s court hearings. This has often resulted in siblings being separated permanently from one another, with no means of staying in contact and maintaining their relationship.

In this Justice Champions of Change interviews, Jennifer Davidson and Alisa Jimenez talk to Alison Reid, Clan Childlaw’s Chief Executive and principal solicitor, about why she set up Clan Childlaw and how its work has influenced the justice for children policy environment in Scotland.

The full text of this interview is available on Pathfinders for Justice's medium page.

Celia Ouellette is the founder and CEO of the Responsible Business Initiative for Justice (RBIJ), a non-profit that works with businesses to champion fairness and equality across systems of justice. Before starting RBIJ, she was a human rights lawyer, working to empower capital defense teams with the knowledge and skills to level the playing field in death penalty cases. She is an RSA Fellow, and in March 2020 she was made a Meaningful Business Ambassador, joining a global community of leaders working to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

You can read the full interview on the Pathfinders for Justice medium page.

n March 2020, Bangladesh responded to the spread of the coronavirus by going into lockdown. This helped limit the spread of the virus, but by blocking or delaying the delivery of justice, it also threatened to expose those who were incarcerated to a disease that thrives in overcrowded conditions.

Many other countries have faced similar problems after going into lockdown, with backlogs of court cases clogging up justice systems and prisons proving to be petri dishes for COVID-19 outbreaks. But by implementing a system involving virtual courts and electronic bail applications, Bangladesh, whose prisons are among the world’s most crowded, has bucked the trend. Since the lockdown began it has released more than 60,000 adults from pre-trial detention and 700 children from custody. In one ten-day period, the justice system heard 33,000 bail applications and released 21,000 people on bail.

In this Justice Champions of Change interviews to focus on justice during the pandemic, Maaike de Langen talked to Justice Imman Ali, a judge in the Supreme Court of Bangladesh who was instrumental in establishing the new system, to find out how it was done.

You can read the full interview on Pathfinders for Justice's medium page.

The Justice for All report highlights the importance of using people-centered justice systems to prevent future injustices. By improving justice journeys for perpetrators as well as victims of crimes, societies can lower the number of perpetrators that reoffend.

In 2015 the country of Georgia reformed its juvenile justice system with this very goal in mind. By shifting the focus from punishment to rehabilitation and prevention, the reforms have made an ineffective system effective, reducing the number of children in prison and greatly reducing reoffending rates at the same time.

In this Justice Champions of Change interviews, Zurab Sanikidze, Chairman of the Public Service Development Agency in Georgia’s Ministry of Justice, told Maaike de Langen how they did it.

You can read the full interview on Pathfinders for Justice's medium page.