Ovais Tahir and Marc Masson are students at Cornell University. Over a period of two months in Zambia, they conducted 35 interviews with representatives from CSOs, labour unions, development organizations, government agencies, and international organizations, asking about their access to legal information. The resulting research paper was published in the Journal of Open Access to Law and was developed with the support of the Southern African Institute for Policy and Research and ZambiaLII.
Without the ability to access or effectively use the laws that apply to them, civil society organisations (CSOs) cannot benefit from the legal tools at their disposal to advocate for their constituencies, and even legal practitioners will have difficulty remaining knowledgeable on the evolving provisions of the law. The objective of our research was to survey the legal information needs of both CSOs and legal practitioners in Zambia, and draw insight into how these needs could be better served going forward.
“In Zambia, sometimes the only source of legal information are government institutions, through which accessing legal information requires physically retrieving it or receiving a paid subscription. Obtaining information in person was found to be a time consuming and bureaucratic process, even for those with legal training how knew exactly what they were looking for.”
In our research paper titled ‘The Legal Information Needs of Civil Society in Zambia’, we outline the needs expressed by civil society organizations, labour unions, and legal practitioners in terms of access to legal documents (laws, statutory instruments, court judgements, etc.) and the capacity to understand those documents. In Zambia, sometimes the only source of legal information are government institutions, through which accessing legal information requires physically retrieving it or receiving a paid subscription. Obtaining information in person was found to be a time consuming and bureaucratic process, even for those with legal training how knew exactly what they were looking for. For others, retrieving legal information can be nearly impossible. One exception is the Parliament, which publishes all new laws on its website; however these laws are uploaded chronologically and so it is difficult for users to identify what laws are relevant to their concerns. Private sources of legal information are few – the KAS Electronic Legal Database has been widely used by Zambian lawyers despite its notorious spelling mistakes and cost (one lawyer reported it cost $2000 for use on two computers).
“One concern with ZambiaLII that was expressed in all interviews where it was mentioned was that it required a relatively fast internet connection to be used effectively, pointing to the need for an offline version to avoid slow loading times.”
ZambiaLII was mentioned in a minority of our interviews as an effective alternative to KAS Law. The free online legal database is becoming progressively more well-known and attractive for organizations and lawyers without the financial means to afford KAS. Those who use ZambiaLII consider it a reliable tool for accessing legal information, though some deplored the fact that its use required a decent internet connection and saw it as less user friendly than KAS. One concern with ZambiaLII that was expressed in all interviews where it was mentioned was that it required a relatively fast internet connection to be used effectively, pointing to the need for an offline version to avoid slow loading times. The “Pocket Law” product developed by AfricanLII seems to be a feasible solution to this problem, offering an offline database of relevant legal information accessible via USB or CD-ROM. While it was clear in our interviews that ZambiaLII was seen as a promising, and free, alternative to accessing legal documents, it faces the challenge of people confusing the site with its less effective predecessor ZamLII. Informing people of the possibilities offered by ZambiaLII is important in order for people to begin using its relatively new database.
“However, each of these sources of legal information are to no avail if civil society lacks the capacity to interpret legal language.”
Our research also identified specific challenges facing civil society organizations (CSOs), labour unions, and legal practitioners in the country. For CSO’s, access to legal information fell under two primary categories, government providers and independent sources. As it is the government’s mandate to provide open access to justice and legal information, the immediate source of legal information for civil society are the government gazettes offered by the Government Printer, the Parliament website offering the Acts of Parliament, and the Supreme/High Courts which provide court judgements. However, each of these carry their own limitations, such as financial, bureaucratic or physical barriers to access. In such cases, CSO’s, in different capacities, resort to independent sources for legal information such as private lawyers, independent collections of legal information, staff paralegals, the KAS Electronic Legal Library or ZambiaLII. However, each of these sources of legal information are to no avail if civil society lacks the capacity to interpret legal language. For this reason, a recurring theme throughout our interviews was the complaint that civil society or CSOs have a bad reading culture, or lack the capacity to interpret any information regardless of its accessibility.
“As Zambia faces a severe shortage of lawyers who have passed the bar, paralegals have never been more relevant for CSOs. In a 2012 study on the shortage of African lawyers, Zambia is described as having approximately one lawyer for every 18,000 people.”
As stated earlier, open access to legal information is of no benefit if a CSO lacks the legal capacity to utilise that information. For this reason, CSOs that we interviewed identified three main obstacles hindering their legal capacity. Firstly, donor funding created a major hurdle for CSOs to fulfil their mandate to their constituencies. Major Western donors such as GIZ have strict indicators beyond which they do not offer funds. This can limit an organisation’s ability to legally train their members or in some cases offer legal services. Secondly, a number of CSOs expressed interest in capacity building services (such as workshops, or networking forums) of which there is a limited provision by a handful of organisations (such as the International Labour Organization or GIZ). Lastly, the limited use of paralegals appears to be a challenge to address, considering as they were mentioned as an extremely popular method of countering the limited access to lawyers, legal services and information. As Zambia faces a severe shortage of lawyers who have passed the bar, paralegals have never been more relevant for CSOs. In a 2012 study on the shortage of African lawyers, Zambia is described as having approximately one lawyer for every 18,000 people. As a comparison, the report states the same ratio to be one for every 260 people in the United State. Paralegals would not only be able to respond to the immense demand for legal counsel and offer legal services even in rural parts of Zambia, they would also be a more affordable alternative for CSO’s needing or offering legal services. Yet, paralegals face major critique from organisations such as LAZ for lacking standardised curriculum and accreditation. Expanding the availability of reliable paralegals in Zambia would require the elaboration of national accreditation standards coupled with a rigorous training process.
“Making the laws of Zambia available in a free, offline format was welcomed by representatives from ZCTU and FFTUZ, the primary Zambian union federations, as being an interesting step, but providing cheaper and more accessible legal advice (potentially through an increased use of certified paralegals) was seen as a more promising solution.”
Much like other CSOs, labour unions face limited legal capacity and technological handicaps. Lawyers are financially out of reach for most unions, and even the main union federation cannot afford to keep a lawyer consistently on staff. While union federations in Zambia have access to the internet as well as connections within the Ministry of Labour to obtain legal information, many unions lack access to the internet and computers are generally only used by their secretaries. Meanwhile, offline sources of legal information are currently limited to expensive print versions of the laws of Zambia from the Government Printer or a legal practitioner with access to their own legal database. The newly created position of the Assistant Labour Commissioner (Legal) at the Zambian Ministry of Labour is an important resource for unions, offering unions and workers legal advice on the phone; however, the unequal knowledge of labour and employment law among Zambian union leaders is a severe impediment to their ability to fight for their legal rights and those of their members. Making the laws of Zambia available in a free, offline format was welcomed by representatives from ZCTU and FFTUZ, the primary Zambian union federations, as being an interesting step, but providing cheaper and more accessible legal advice (potentially through an increased use of certified paralegals) was seen as a more promising solution.
“The main challenges facing lawyers in their access to legal information are the significant costs of the KAS Electronic Legal Database (~$2000) which makes it available to only successful lawyers and law firms.”
Among the other categories of civil society actors we interviewed, lawyers face relatively less difficulty in accessing legal information, yet they still face multiple challenges that hamper their access to legal information. The main challenges facing lawyers in their access to legal information are the significant costs of the KAS Electronic Legal Database (~$2000) which makes it available to only successful lawyers and law firms, as well as the legal database’s questionable accuracy, with one lawyer we interviewed saying that it was as reliable as Wikipedia. Lawyers also experience the same difficulties as other actors in accessing legal documents directly from government providers (the Judiciary, the Government Printer), although by virtue of being lawyers they can usually identify the information they need and obtain it. They have also been the target recipient of the Judiciary’s recent push to implement electronic filing of court decisions, which explained its focus on lawyers by the debateable assumption that they were the only group interested in that information.
“Many of the people we spoke to believed that the Law Association of Zambia (LAZ) should play a larger role in promoting access to legal information in the country.”
Many of the people we spoke to believed that the Law Association of Zambia (LAZ) should play a larger role in promoting access to legal information in the country. In recent years been more receptive to the need for more legally-trained individuals, changing course after years of having opposed to granting official status to paralegals. Some people have called on LAZ to do more to make paralegals a recognized profession in Zambia, with a system of certification and the ability to advise CSOs and individuals at an affordable cost. In addition, others argued that LAZ should behave more like a CSO and take a more active role in ensuring that other CSOs and individuals have access to and are able to use legal information. LAZ in response has stated they are constrained by staffing and funding limitations, however there is donor funding available for access to justice initiatives that could potentially be applied for by and rewarded to such a nationally respected organization.
“We found that both categories of actors had clearly defined needs, though those of CSOs were the most varied and crippling.”
In conclusion, in our upcoming paper we identified the challenges facing civil society organisations, including unions, and legal practitioners in the access and use of legal information. We found that both categories of actors had clearly defined needs, though those of CSOs were the most varied and crippling. We shared what our interview subjects thought would be most useful for improving their access to legal information, and derived possible policy solutions from the results we compiled. Our research is not conclusive, as it was limited by its relatively short two month duration. However, we believe that it can serve as a platform for further research into the legal information needs of civil society in Zambia, as well as those of other civil societies in developing countries with incomplete access to their country’s legal information.