Bolivia
President Mesa Helps Usher Justice To New Populations in
Bolivia
It is not every day that the President of a
country inaugurates a USAID project. But that happened in
Bolivia, where President Carlos Mesa recently helped to open
the country’s first mini-justice center.
Formally called an Integrated Justice Center, USAID established
the facilities to improve access to justice for Bolivians
in typically isolated populations. The centers, located in
areas in which the central government has tenuous authority,
house trained professionals who can conduct arbitration and
similar legal procedures, short of formal judicial proceedings.
In Central and South America, judicial centers often fill
a critical void between criminal behaviors and formal legal
system. In Bolivia, however, these institutions are being
constructed under a broader perspective: as a one-stop shop
for people willing to find solutions to their daily conflicts
in the context of dialogue.
“Bolivia is recovering since last year from a critical
situation -- the result of a series of serious confrontations
that culminated in the ousting of a President,” said
USAID/Bolivia Mission Director Liliana Ayalde. “Today,
the challenge is to rebuild trust and democratic institutions.
President Carlos Mesa is pushing for a stabilization period,
and these justice centers reinforce the idea that a responsible
government can improve the lives of average Bolivians.”
The centers provide the population – many of them indigenous
– with information on legal rights and procedures, often
administering conciliatory services in conjunction with the
formal judicial system. They aim to facilitate a timelier
rendering of verdicts, decrease due process violations and
involve the public in the monitoring of justice sector officials.
The centers also produce a cadre of indigenous professionals
who learn judicial skills in order to replicate and implement
the centers’ services.
The systems differ from the formal justice system’s
make-up of traditional lawyers, judges and prosecutors and
instead are comprised of services entrusted to the indigenous
population but still recognized under the formal justice system.
President Mesa presided over the inauguration of the center
in El Alto, one of the poorest areas of Bolivia, where nearly
two of three people live in poverty. Other centers were opened
in Yungas and Chapare, also impoverished communities. The
latter, once one of the world’s largest coca-producing
centers, is transforming its economic base to legitimate crops
and products with the assistance of USAID alternative development
activities.
USAID will fund the centers for a year and hopes they will
generate sufficient credibility to attract other funding to
cover operational costs in future years.
“The inauguration of the justice centers in Bolivia
comes at a perfect time – strengthening the bond between
the government and its citizenry by providing both formal
and alternative forms of justice,” said Ayalde.
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