The Situations of Access to Justice in Southeast Asia as the Impact of Covid-19 Pandemic
November 22, 2023
Statement of Civil Society Network’s Position on the Series of ICESCR and ICCPR Sessions to the Indonesian Government
March 15, 2024
On November 30, 2023, SEAPIL Focal Point joined in a two session Convening in Cebu, Philippines. The Convening was held in Cebu alongside with the Asia Pro Bono Conference (APBC) happening in the next following days.
The first session of the convening started at 09:00 AM, Cebu Time. All the focal points discussed a series of potential issues by differentiating it in two factors, internal and external factors. By having three hours of sessions led by Febio Nesta (Focal Point from Indonesia) and Melissa (Focal Point from Malaysia), we concluded that there are several challenges that SEAPIL needs to work on in the near future, such as:
- Cross border issues: Defining collaborations on resource lawyers in Southeast Asia and other regions.
- Share information on cross border litigation, by doing a series of learning exchanges and building capacity. Providing guidelines for lawyers and toolkit for sudden and urgent matters for lawyers protection.
- Anti-Slapp: Support litigation and advocacy by making cross-border amicus curiae and doing research on Anti-SLAPP to fill in the gap.
- Resource issues for lawyers.
- Campaign/public pressure/support by supporting each member of SEAPIL on urgent and sudden matters and bring the issues to public attention.
- Public Interest Lawyers emergency funds
- Lawyers protections
- Collaboration with SEA Public Interest Lawyers.
In the second session of the convening, SEAPIL discussed the internal capacity to strengthen SEAPIL as a network that could fulfil all the members’ needs by discussing SEAPIL Terms of Reference, logo, and members recruitments. Indonesia Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI) are once again graced with the credence of being SEAPIL Secretariat in 2023.
