Legal services in Latin America

In Latin America, legal services were created between the end of the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s as a sort of reaction to dictatorship. They are part of the larger process of emergence of NGOs, created in the fields of popular education and social work, in order to fill the gaps left by the state. They played a very important part in the social development of the region.

The expression "alternative legal practices", which often crops in relation to this movement, has not been invented by anyone. It perhaps originated in Italy, but these groups were never meant to stick to a fixed ideology. The term expresses more the previous existence of such practices, which have proved that it is possible to approach the law differently: that is to say, to see the law in a different way from most traditional lawyers. The founding remarks and questions then were : if the law and most lawyers does not meet the needs of the population because of its incapacity, how can the growing gap between the real world and the legal world be closed? How can we make lawyers interested in a social commitment? Which methods should be used for working with the people?

The life and history of the legal services show that the stages they have transgressed have gradually forced them to change their role and their activities. The stages and roles are as follows:

1)The phase of explanation of the law and legal disclosure : as a reaction to the unsatisfied rights of the people, a mainly pedagogical task.

2)The phase of organisation of legal programmes, throwing into question the traditional role of the lawyer. "Alternative" legal services help organise and educate the community, which letting it participate actively in its own defence. The teaching methods in the educational work become clear and include legal theatre, legal radio, popular legal education textbooks, picture books, cartoons and many socio-dramatic role-playing games for the people with scenes taken from real life.

3)The participation phase, where the community takes part in its own legal battles. The legal services must be able to undertake the "collective treatment of a legal problem", which means avoiding isolating individual cases and instead treating a problem which affects the whole community. It also means the involvement of the community in the local power struggle, in the democratisation of the neighbourhoods and in the formulation of suggestions for local government programmes.

4)Today there is still one question left unanswered - how can we make sure that legal services become a factor of social transformation? Now it is no longer a matter of combatting the state, but of constructing a democratic state, a truly participatory democracy. After years of opposition and insubordination this role is difficult to take on. The groups also have to be able to resist power, as some societies maintain their domination by inviting the most capable opponents to join their circle of power, thereby dissolving any resistance.

In the present situation the following challenging questions need to be answered:

- how can the state be made more democratic and the civil society be given more power?

- how can the community be made into a sovereign subject with the possibility of voting and of participating, rather than just a simple subject of citizenship which only votes?

- how can the role of protagonist be transferred to the people who have been excluded during the construction of democracy?

- how can we contribute to the creation of a new social model at this time of structural discordance between human rights and development?

Legal services still have a lot to accomplish: the systematization of legal experiments and the use of this information for popular social work; consolidating partnerships and defining strategical alliances with other development agents, not forgetting the new social movements; participating in the creation of a new social law where the community is able to propose new laws.