@article{ThePointofEqualAccesstoJustice:OntheDutyto:1724,
      recid = {1724},
      author = {Segatti, Marco},
      title = {The Point of Equal Access to Justice: On the Duty to, at  Times and Provisionally, Pause, Cool Down and Listen},
      publisher = {The University of Chicago},
      school = {J.S.D.},
      address = {2019-03},
      pages = {428},
      abstract = {ABSTRACT

What is the source of Governments’ commitments  in the administration of justice? Why, and when, should  Governments pay for private lawyers? Should actual users of  legal services be asked to pay for (at least some of) these  costs? How should we identify the relevant costs  anyways?

Does the protection of equality matter for how we  answer these questions? If so, which conception of equality  is best suited for understanding its claims in the  administration of justice? Which kinds of limits should  Governments be authorized to impose on the use of legal  services, in order to protect their equal  availability?

These are (some of) the central normative  questions in the field of access to justice. Their  respective answers directly affect the way we should think  about many pressing and urgent political questions. 

This  essay argues that the comparative best way to think about  these questions is to begin by identifying our moral,  pre-political interest, which we all share as humans, in  protecting the abilities (or behavioral functions) involved  in access to justice. Given the kind of beings that we are  (responsive to reasons of various kinds, sociable, and  having needy and temporal bodies), we are morally  interested in our ability to disagree with others in  certain qualified ways. This moral interest is what  triggers the recognition of a (moral) duty to, at times,  and provisionally, pause, cool down, and listen.

We ought  to demand that Governments pay for the administration of  justice, and even pay (at times at least) for private  lawyers, because we recognize as morally binding, for  ourselves and for others, the reasonable authority of the  duty on our activities and interests. 

This essay further  proposes three political principles, which should help one  to think well about public intervention the field. We  should model public institutions in access to justice as a  means to protect people from hierarchical social relations,  as a means to protect the epistemic capacities of public  institutions, and as a means to express a democratic  culture in dispute resolution.},
      url = {http://knowledge.uchicago.edu/record/1724},
      doi = {https://doi.org/10.6082/uchicago.1724},
}