Women who suffer from spousal violence in Libya, may be reluctant to 'search for justice', and especially to involve formal state actors like police, prosecutors, or courts. They face intimidation, social pressure, stigma, and a justice journey riddled with obstacles. Nevertheless, Dr Jazia Shayteer shows how several women in Benghazi do try to hold their (ex-)husbands to account, and with what results.
Who is responsible for damages resulting from a civil war? Ahmed al-Radamah interviewed Tebu, Tuareg and Arabs in Awbari who suffered damages during the 2014 fighting. They tried different mechanisms to get a remedy - taking their claims beyond Tripoli to Qatar - yet so far compensation remains a distant promise and the process is shrined in contested uncertainty.
Some of the most vulnerable people in Libya, are the country's estimated 700,000 irregular or undocumented migrants. Their very stay in Libya constitutes a crime, and so they avoid state authorities when they can. Dr Hala el-Atrash's research revealed that when irregular migrant women appear before Libya’s justice system, it is often not as claimants or victims but as suspects.
Libya's oil production sometimes leads to disputes between companies and local inhabitants, such as in oasis areas Jalu, Jakharrah, and Awjilah. For this study, Khadija Faraj interviewed people who were affected by oil pollution and local experts.
Libyan women have the right to inherit land – both in sharia and statutory law – and depriving them of this right (‘disinheritance’) is even forbidden. But what happens in practice? Suliman Ibrahim and Bruno Braak dive deep into one case study to learn how women's attitudes and actions in response to disinheritance are changing.
When you think about civil war, perhaps the loss of personal documentation is not the first thing that comes to mind. Yet such losses can have long-lasting negative impacts on the lives of people. Monder Daw Qayeed shows this based on case study research among internally displaced Tawerghans who now live in Tripoli. This study is part of Phase 1 of the Access to Justice-project.
During the Gaddafi-regime, several laws expropriated and redistributed people's property on a massive scale. Since Gaddafi's fall, former owners and their offspring have been trying to reclaim their land. In Al-Marj, some of these disputes escalated violently and pitted entire families against one another.
The Abu Salim prison massacre of 1996 is arguably the most heinous act of state repression in Libya's living memory. Some 1270 prisoners were killed and the events were denied and obscured by state authorities. Supreme Court Judge Ali Abu Raas studied the justice journeys of three family members of the victims of the Abu Salim-prison massacre.
To learn about access to justice, it is essential to research empirically what ordinary people do with 'potentially legal problems': their justice journeys.
