Rule of law means ‘taking law off the shelf’
What is a crime? What causes criminal behaviour? Who makes the law and why? Those are just some of the questions that students at Youthreach Ballymun tackled before lunch on a Thursday morning, writes Paul Dornan, managing solicitor at Ballymun Community Law Centre.
Ballymun Community Law Centre was delighted to facilitate a workshop with Youthreach Ballymun students as part of its QQI Crime Awareness module on Thursday 15 May.
At this interactive session we tried to answer some of these big questions and sought to challenge some assumptions about the law. How is law made? By whom? And who is it for?
The students eagerly responded to these questions, providing thought-provoking answers and showing a real understanding of current legal and social issues.
Legal education
Access to legal education and information for people in Ballymun is central to our work at Ballymun Community Law Centre and is fundamental to delivering meaningful access to justice.
As the first dedicated legal office for Ballymun, the law centre has been offering its services for the people here since 2002 (over 22 years!).
As a charity and independent law centre embedded in the community, we provide free legal and mediation services through accessible legal drop-in clinics, helpline information, representation and alternative disputes resolution services facilitated by qualified mediators.
We also run a legal-education programme, delivering courses in the law centre on topics such as:
- Family and childcare law,
- Human-rights law,
- Social-housing law, as well as delivering talks and events in collaboration with other groups in the area.
Rights and protections
It was through such a collaboration that we spoke to the Ballymun Youthreach students about the Irish legal system and crime awareness.
Sandra Mpanyira (project officer) and Paul Dornan (community solicitor) challenged the students to reflect on what actions they would consider to be crimes and why, as well as giving the students some context as to how laws are made in Ireland and how the background of lawmakers might reflect the kinds of laws that are made.
They also spoke of their own experiences and what kinds of issues they saw faced by clients and how they interacted with the law.
Students were encouraged to take copies of Bunreacht na hÉireann and to look through it, to see what rights and protections it affords its citizens and to see how it applies to them.
Making law accessible
If we want to be a society governed by the rule of law, this law has to be taken off the shelf and be accessible for everyone, be understood by everyone, and be used by everyone. If not, it can only ever be a rule of law for some and a ruled by law for others.
- Bringing law into the community,
- Making it accessible, and
- Encouraging people to engage with it and to understand what rights and entitlements they have and how they can access effective remedies through the legal system.
This is such a central part of what we do and working with community groups such as Youthreach Ballymun is key to doing this. With the support of the Law Society of Ireland, we aim to keep doing this for another 22 years.