{"id":468,"date":"2007-01-15T18:19:38","date_gmt":"2007-01-15T22:19:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/shlep\/2007\/01\/15\/mlk-and-the-pro-se-movement\/"},"modified":"2007-01-15T18:58:31","modified_gmt":"2007-01-15T22:58:31","slug":"mlk-and-the-pro-se-movement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/2007\/01\/15\/mlk-and-the-pro-se-movement\/","title":{"rendered":"MLK and the pro se movement"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"MLKjr\"\u00a0\u00a0No message in\u00a0Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s\u00a0powerful Letter from a Birmingham Jail<\/em><\/a>\u00a0deserves repetition in today’s America more than his\u00a0reminder that\u00a0“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere<\/em>.”\u00a0 As Greg Worthen noted today in Blawg Review<\/em> 91<\/a>, that truth has meaning in many aspects of the life of our nation, not\u00a0merely in the\u00a0context of race.\u00a0 In honor of Dr. King, others are writing today about justice and equality in our criminal justice system, and in our politics, education,\u00a0economy, etc. (see the compilation of such\u00a0“blawg” postings at the foot of\u00a0BR<\/em>91<\/a>).\u00a0<\/p>\n

shlep<\/em>‘s focus, naturally, is justice for all within our civil justice system.\u00a0 Martin Luther King Day is a great opportunity to remind ourselves and our readers that injustice within our courts is not just ironic, it is inexcusable.\u00a0 There\u00a0will be\u00a0no true “justice for all” until justice is accessible and meaningful to every person in America.\u00a0 Please allow me to repeat\u00a0a quote by New Hampshire’s Chief Justice John T. Broderick, Jr., from his Remarks on Access to Justice<\/a>\u00a0(February 16, 2006):<\/p>\n

\"ScalesRichPoor\"\u00a0“[I]f those in poverty or near poverty do not have meaningful access to the courts, the judicial system will not have fulfilled its constitutional obligation or the fundamental promise of our republic.\u00a0\u00a0Equal justice under law is not achievable if poverty barricades the doors to our courthouses and allows some, but not all of our citizens, a fair and impartial forum to redress their grievances. Neither will it be achieved if we [viz.<\/em>, lawyers and judges] do not assume ownership.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It is estimated that 80% of the legal needs of the poor and near poor go unmet in this rich nation.\u00a0 As discussed here<\/a>, there will never be enough lawyers to serve the needs of every American [indeed, assigning lawyers to “solve” the legal needs of every American would waste dollars better used elsewhere.]\u00a0\u00a0Instead, as\u00a0we say on our shlep<\/em> About page<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The best way to ensure that the non-rich also have access to necessary legal and judicial services is to give them the ability and the option to formulate adequate solutions themselves, including acting as pro se<\/em> litigants in court.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The numbers of self-represented parties is very large and growing in courts across our nation.\u00a0 We must acknowledge, as\u00a0a New Hampshire Supreme Court Task Force did in its 2004 Report “Challenge to Justice<\/a>” (discussed here<\/a>\u00a0at f\/k\/a<\/em>),\u00a0that pro se<\/em> litigants \u201dcome into their<\/em> court, on their own, with a conflict or change in their lives, and they expect a resolution. That is their constitutional right.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Although it doesn’t take Dr. King’s courage<\/a> (in the face of physical threats, imprisonment and hatred) to fight for the right of every American for access to justice, the pro se<\/em> movement and efforts to help the self-represented are an important continuation of his battle to remove injustice from our society.\u00a0 Economic inequality is a continuing vestige of racial and ethnic discrimination.\u00a0 Poverty (and sometimes merely being “un-rich”) has too often, and for far too long,\u00a0prevented meaningful\u00a0access to our civil justice system.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"announcerR\"\u00a0Ensuring that wealth is no longer the key to the courthouse and that\u00a0our judicial system fairly serves\u00a0every American is, therefore,\u00a0an obligation of all<\/em> who are responsible for\u00a0the operation of our legal and judicial system — that means judges and court staff, lawyers, politicians and office-holders, and<\/em> also voters. \u00a0\u00a0Taking up that obligation honors and helps us achieve Dr. King’s dream that justice and equality for all would become America’s reality.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0No message in\u00a0Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s\u00a0powerful Letter from a Birmingham Jail\u00a0deserves repetition in today’s America more than his\u00a0reminder that\u00a0“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”\u00a0 As Greg Worthen noted today in Blawg Review 91, that truth has meaning in many aspects of the life of our nation, not\u00a0merely in the\u00a0context of race.\u00a0 In […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":437,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[991,900],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-items","category-viewpoint"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/437"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/shlep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}