Strategic Area:                         Democratic Governance

Alignment with strategic plan:    Crisis Prevention and Recovery

Project Name:                          Judiciary

Duration:                                 2006-2009 (second phase)

Project Summary:
The Judiciary support project is part of the Rule of Law and Security strategy and aims at strengthening the functional capacities of the judiciary system and expanding the access to justice to all Somalis. In the first phase (2003-2005), the overall judiciary objective was to strengthen institutions through training and infrastructure rehabilitation. These initiatives were complemented by an approach which included legal empowerment and confidence-building of the Somali public, including legal clinics, legal aid, translation and awareness raising at community levels. In addition, research and analysis was carried out on the role of informal justice mechanisms, including the perception and use of different justice systems. In the second phase (2006-2009), the project puts greater emphasis on access to justice for poor and vulnerable groups, in particular utilizing past experiences and commissioned research on traditional justice mechanisms. Furthermore, the project focuses more on institutional development, in particular at policy level and administration of justice. The custodial corps is also part of the judiciary project and is supported both through infrastructure development/rehabilitation as well as through institutional development.


Expected outputs of the project are:
•    Basic systems for the administration of justice established and strengthened
•    Enhanced accessibility of justice and security for poor and vulnerable men, women and children in Somalia.
•    Development/rehabilitation of justice and prison infrastructure.
•    Professionalization of the Custodial Corps


Implementation Description and Achievements:
In order to increase access to Justice, the project has supported (i) the establishment of Legal Clinics, which provides free legal representation to marginalized groups while providing valuable supervised work experience to law students, (ii) awareness raising campaigns in rural areas and districts where vulnerable populations reside, (iii) support to the Bar Association, (iv) training of judges and judiciary personnel, including custodial corps, (v) assessment of the court administration and cases management, (vi) prison monitoring system to ensure that prison management is in line with international human rights standards, (vii) harmonization of different legal systems (customary, sharia and statutory) and (viii) infrastructure rehabilitation/construction of prisons and courts.

Furthermore, UNDP has also supported the Supreme Court and has started an innovative joint project on juvenile justice with UNICEF.