A methodology that measures the costs and quality of justice

MA2J, the TISCO methodology for measuring the costs and quality of access to justice, was used to assess the experiences of the users of two paths to justice in Rwanda. The study is part of the Innovating Rule of Law Project.

Half of the interviewed respondents used first instance trial courts to solve their civil justice problems. Most of the problems concerned land disputes. The other half of the sample consists of people who sought resolution in a unique Rwandan dispute resolution fora – the Abunzi committees. Abunzi can be understood as local wise men/women panels for mediation or conciliation. There are more than 12 000 Abunzi committees across Rwanda. Their role is to solve the emerging civil disputes with the resources of the local communities. Each commission consists of 12 members whereas in each particular dispute 3 of these members are called to mediate. There is a wide variation in the methods used by the different Abunzi committees to bring about a fair solution but most often what is being used can be referred to as “soft arbitration”. This means that initially the Abunzis act as mediators between the disputants and if there is no sufficient will to reach a settlement, the commission proceeds in a more adjudicative mode.

Our main research interest was to investigate the similarities and differences in the perceived costs, procedural and outcome fairness. Our partners from the Rwandan Legal Aid Forum interviewed a sample of 358 users of the two paths to justice. The spiderweb (see below) suggests that the users of the two processes assess them in similar terms. The quality of the process and the quality of the outcome are experienced in strikingly similar terms. There is a slight difference in the time and out-of-pocket categories. As expected, the Abunzi committees score better because of their local character and informality.

We are interested in your opinion – how can we better explain the spiderweb? What might be the possible confounding factors? How the data can help to innovate further and improve the user’s experiences with courts and Abunzi committees?

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