• Location: 1 central office in Bujumbura, 4 branch offices in Gitega, Ngozi, Makamba and Rumonge  
• Date of establishment: 1999
• Team: 4 expatriates, 31 local collaborators and 15 collaborating lawyers
• Objective: to contribute to improved access to justice for vulnerable persons  
• Funding: Belgian Ministry of Cooperation and Development, Department for International Development (DFID)
  

Background

Independent since 1962, Burundi has in the last decades suffered various struggles for power and cycles of violence, culminating in 1993 with a civil war.  After prolonged negotiations and a transition period from 2002 to 2005, Burundi held its first democratic elections in 2005. Proclaimed as free and fair by national and international observers, those elections represented the hopes of a great majority of the population.
Nevertheless, the first legislature has not realised the expected results.  Burundi continues to be one of the poorest nations in the world (ranking 174th out of 182 countries on the 2007 Human Development Index), with 70% of the population living below the poverty line and 90% surviving by means of subsistence agriculture.

The political landscape, in spite of the integration of the last rebel group (Forces nationales de libération - National Liberation Forces) into the political realm in 2009, is marked by recurrent instability with multiple tensions and divisions among the parties.  The rule of law is not firmly established and serious breaches of human rights (attacks on the rights to life, to physical integrity, to freedom of association and expression, sexual violence, etc.) are regularly committed and facilitated by the circulation of about 100,000 small arms.

The administration of justice remains problematic (including allegations of political interference, lack of resources and competence of the judicial authorities, limited access by vulnerable populations, corruption, prison overpopulation, illegal preventive detention, etc.) and the confidence of the public in its functioning is limited, which leads to frequent recourse to ‘vigilante’ justice.  In addition, mechanisms of traditional justice, foreseen by the Arusha accords, have not yet been put in place.  A major step forward on the justice front should however be commended: the Burundi authorities have adopted a new Criminal Code that enshrines the prohibition of international crimes, such as crimes against humanity, genocide and war crimes. In addition, the Code criminalises torture and abolishes capital punishment. 

Despite all the challenges, Burundi remains on the path of democratisation. 

Programmes

ASF contributes to better access to justice for vulnerable populations by means of improved legal aid (including both advice and representation).

In order to achieve this, ASF concentrates its work on:

• Free legal advice: people benefit from legal consultations with lawyers and legal experts via four offices (Bujumbura, Gitega, Ngozi and Makamba), mobile clinics, and visits to places of detention.
• Free legal representation for the most vulnerable: vulnerable people benefit from the assistance of a lawyer to handle their case in pre-trial and trial stages, in cases involving: minors, sexual violence, land law, torture, illegal detention and fundamental rights. 
• Legal awareness-raising of the population: ASF trains community liaisons to raise awareness of their communities about sexual violence and torture, and to refer people to our services or our partners for assistance.  
• Capacity-building of lawyers and the bar association:  ASF works, in close collaboration with lawyers and the Bar to strengthen their capacities and contribute to the fair functioning of the justice system.  ASF organises theoretical and practical training sessions for lawyers on topics related to certain types of cases (torture, sexual violence, civil rights, ethics, etc.).  ASF also provides institutional and organisational support to the bar association so that it can play an essential judicial and social role in Burundi. ASF works with the bar association to put in place a sustainable system of legal aid that can be supported by the government and international community. 
• Advocacy: ASF carries out advocacy on the application of the Criminal Code adopted in 2009 and participates in work related to the new Code of Criminal Procedure, the Land Law, and the ratification by Burundi of the second optional protocol to the Convention on Torture.

All forms of assistance above concern the following types of cases:

• Land disputes
• Torture
• Sexual violence
• Illegal preventive detention

Archives

• 1993 genocide cases: in 1999, ASF launched a programme of legal aid that consisted of defending victims and persons accused of involvement in the massacres during the crisis of 1993. In 2006, ASF inherited all the case files of the High Commissioner for Human Rights related to that crisis.  Subsequently, ASF established a database to summarise all the files in order to create a record of the judicial handling of these cases.  The renewal of the debate over what mechanisms of transitional justice to put in place will perhaps lead to a decision in 2010 or 2011 on whether or not the database needs to be brought up to date. 

Links

• ASF's publications
• http://www.bi.undp.org/documents/CPD202010-2014.pdf
• www.fao.org