Role of Paralegals in Access to Justice

Strengthening the rule of law and promoting access to justice in developing countries have been longstanding international policy objectives. However, the standard policy tools, such as technical assistance and material aid, are routinely criticized for failing to achieve their objectives. The rare exception is paralegal aid, which is almost universally lauded by policymakers and scholars as effective in promoting the rule of law and access to justice. This belief, however, rests on a very limited empirical foundation regarding what paralegal programs accomplish and under what theory they operate. Equality in the administration of Justice is precisely a flowering stem to the Indian Constitution. Equality here is referred to as an equal access to the Court and of presenting the case before the Judiciary but access to the court is limped upon by the payment of sizeable court fees and the assistance of skilled lawyers. This is in the context where she/ he are denied equality in the opportunity to seek justice. Nobody in our Hindustan shall be adamantly denied her/ his rights at law for lack of means but to translate this into actuality and address the same it was/ is necessary to create a considerable apparatus both on paper and practice. The present paper addresses the issue of Legal Aid Clinics constituted under The Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987. It has been observed that Para-Legal Volunteers, who have been appointed to create Legal Awareness and to provide legal aid to the needy, is working efficiently to assist our developing country at par with the developed ones.