Page 44 - Impact: Collected Essays on Expanding Access to Justice

Access to Justice in Buffalo and Beyond: making the Justice system more Welcoming for refugees
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fidèle menavanza, ms, LLB1
Introduction
As an essential human right, much has been written about access to justice . Still, too many poor people lack this essential access all over the world when they face major life challenges . The issue confronts people experiencing poverty around the globe, as well as close to home .
Access to justice for the most vulnerable is as encompassing as our country is diverse, affecting all races, ethnic groups, and ages . Victims of domestic violence, people with disabilities, homeowners facing foreclosure, renters facing eviction, families with or without children, and veterans all struggle to gain access to justice .
It is then no surprise to broadly list here asylees and refugees . According to the definition accepted by the United Nations and the United States, both asylees and refugees flee their home country based on a “well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group[,] or political opinion .”2
While “asylees request asylum once they enter the U .S . and based on the fear of returning to their home country, refugees are usually given this title outside the U .S ., generally overseas in a country other than their own .”3
Still, their influx into the new land with a variety of needs poses new challenges to the U .S . Court system . It is important then that their impact within court proceedings occupy a central role in our discussion of access to justice .
Further, the U .S . Supreme Court has found a constitutional right to counsel for individuals in criminal proceedings,4 but has failed to establish a similar categorical protection for individuals in civil proceedings . “The result is a crisis in unmet civil legal needs: less than one in five low-income
1 Paralegal at Legal Services for the Elderly, Disabled or Disadvantaged of Western New York, at Buffalo. Prior to coming to the u.S. in 2011, the author was an Attorney and Diplomat in the Democratic Republic of Congo. he would like to thank Karen Nicolson, Dave Shapiro, and Daniel Webster for enriching this paper with their comments. Some of the discussion in this article previously appeared in Fidèle Menavanza, Setting the Stage: Western New York Refugee Flow Train Has Left the Station!, bar ass’n of erie counTy bull., 12, 14 (May 2015), available at http://www.eriebar.org/files/Bulletin_May_2015.web.pdf.
2 united Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, art. 1(A) (2), Jul. 28, 1951, 189 u.N.T.S. 150, & united Nations Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, Jan. 31, 1967, 606 u.N.T.S. 267; 8 u.S.C. § 1101(a)(42).
3 Refugees & Asylum, u.s. ciTizenshiP and immigraTion serVices, http://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/refugees-asylum (last visited Jan. 30, 2016). Someone may seek a referral for refugee status only from outside of the united States while asylum status is a form of protection available to people who meet the definition of refugee, are already in the united States and are seeking admission at a port of entry.
4 See Gideon v. Wainright, 372 u.S. 335 (1963).
Impact: Collected Essays on Expanding Access to Justice