Access to Legal Aid Services in Lebanese Prisons

LA SAGESSE UNIVERSITY - AJEM

 Support to Legal Aid in Lebanon

Access to Legal Aid Services

in Lebanese Prisons

Read the full study here

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

About the Project

About the Author

Abbreviations

Section I - Legislation related to legal aid for prisoners: Consistency of Lebanese Regulations with international standards

A. International and National Legislation Protecting Prisoners and Detainees Rights

1. International Instruments Protecting Rights of Prisoners and Detainees.

2. The Protection of the Rights of Prisoners and Detainees in the Republic of Lebanon Legislation.

B. Overview of Lebanese Prisons Today: Overpopulation, poor detention conditions and correlation between level of poverty and legal vulnerability

1. Official statistics on Lebanese prison population for 2016

2. Challenging prison conditions and status of penitentiary reform

Section II - Understanding Legal Aid Provision in Lebanese prisons, gaps and challenges

A. Knowledge of local justice system: Accessibility, knowledge and awareness of prisoners of legal assistance and services
1. Socio-Economic Profile of the Surveyed Prisoners: Mostly Young, Single, Uneducated and Underprivileged Males.
2. Legal Status of the Surveyed Prisoners: Mostly first-time arrests under pre-trial detention.
3. Awareness and Knowledge of Surveyed Prisoners of their Legal Aid Rights: Lack of awareness and initiative despite a basic understanding that the notion constitutes a fundamental human right.

B. Accessing Local justice mechanisms: requesting and accessing legal services within prisons in Lebanon.
1. Practices related to resorting to Legal Aid Services by Surveyed Prisoners: Misinformed defendants disengaged from the judicial process and enduring an asymmetric relation with their counsel.
2. Perception of Legal Services by Surveyed Prisoners: Some consideration towards Legal Aid despite higher regard for private counseling.

 Appendixes