Access to Justice in Punjab

The Centre for Justice Law & Society at Jindal Global Law School and the RoundGlass India Center at Seattle University are collaborating on a project that seeks to map the barriers to access to justice in Mohali, Punjab with a focus on gaining an in depth understanding of the gendered experience of the obstacles and barriers faced by women, particularly from marginalised caste and class locations, in accessing justice. Through this project, our endeavour is to explore unique and fresh perspectives in analysing the structural barriers for access to justice, especially given the heterogenous experiences of women owing to socio-political and other systemic hierarchies of power.

As women’s experiences are shaped by their socio-spatial and geographical location, we argue that it is critically important to contextualise the idea of “access to justice”. It is in this light, this research project proposes to map the experience of women in Mohali district in Punjab in order to: (a) map the issues faced by women; (b) their responses and (c) experience with formal and informal justice institutions. The research will move beyond diagnosing the problem but propose concrete and measurable solutions that can be launched by RoundGlass Foundation.