Legal Aid Services in the Juvenile Justice System: A Field Action Research
摘要
The Constitution of India under Article 39A, 14, and 22(1) made it mandatory for the State to promote justice on the basis of equal opportunity. Section 12 of the Legal Services Authorities Act made it mandatory to provide legal services to all women and children. Adopting an action research approach, a study was done to understand how legal aid services were being provided to Children in Conflict with the Law (CCL) in observation homes. This study was the first of its kind in India. Data was collected from case files and through interviews with families whose children received free legal aid lawyers (LAL). This chapter documents the challenges faced by researchers in collecting data. It revealed how the overall environment with respect to legal aid lawyers was exploitative and corrupt and LALs doubled up as private lawyers and confused clients and got them to pay for the legal services which are supposed to be free. The findings of this study were used as evidential data to advocate for change and submitted to the Maharashtra State Legal Services Authority. This study created an impact and did bring about change toward access to justice for CCLs.