Report from the ADB Symposium on Challenges in Implementing Access to Justice Reforms

Abstract

The lessons learned in ADB’s decade-long involvement with law and justice reform are, in summary: First, law and justice reforms do have a positive correlation to poverty reduction. Legal and judicial reforms do result in benefits contributing to economic growth and development. The results of recent studies showing this positive relation between legal reforms and poverty reduction invite people to rethink their reluctance to address issues that are presently deemed as political constraints to governance, particularly judicial governance. After all, legal and judicial reforms that are implemented in a piecemeal fashion are bound to fail if the broader political context of governance remains unaddressed. Second, poverty reduction means more than simply economic development. Legal and judicial reforms that promote social development and expand human capability—interventions that seek to protect the vulnerable and empower the poor—are both crucial and complementary to interventions that promote pro-poor sustainable economic growth and those that promote good governance.