This text is for position only. The Access to Jus­tice project of the LRC allows those who can­not afford legal ser­vices to have access to legal assis­tance to defend their rights.

Sta­tis­tics released by Sta­tis­tics SA show that 52% of the peo­ple in rural areas are unem­ployed and 32,2% of house­holds in these areas depend on gov­ern­ment grants as their main source of income. Many of these peo­ple can­not deal with the enor­mous dif­fi­cul­ties they face with­out access to the legal jus­tice sys­tem.

Even today, in the sec­ond decade of democ­racy, access to jus­tice remains some­thing that the major­ity of South Africans can­not even dream about. The rea­sons include the high level of poverty and asso­ci­ated mar­gin­al­i­sa­tion, par­tic­u­larly in the rural areas, lack of infra­struc­ture and State capac­ity, the scarcity of legal skills in impov­er­ished areas, illit­er­acy and igno­rance of what the Bill of Rights and the Con­sti­tu­tion enti­tles peo­ple to.ment and democ­racy.

In many cases the LRC has been the only organ­i­sa­tion able to pro­vide basic legal assis­tance which makes a dif­fer­ence between jus­tice and the total lack thereof for many.