Equal Access to Justice – Between Normativity and Reality

For a social constitutional state, it is elementary that the social rights it grants are (or can be) actually realized. In Germany, there has been hardly any research on this for decades, neither theoretical-conceptual nor empirical.

At the same time, however, there is reason to suspect that - possibly as a result of growing inequalities and despite new digital means of enforcing rights - a number of social groups do not have adequate access to justice. Our project aims to pave the way for closing the existing research gap by creating a renewed theoretical and conceptual basis for research into access to justice in German-speaking countries.

In disciplinary terms, the project builds a bridge between legal studies concerned with social rights and (poverty) sociology. The project is intended to provide an innovative impetus for both disciplines by further developing the theoretical and conceptual foundations of access research in dialogue with international research and, in particular, outlining and further developing the concepts of “responsiveness”  and  “legal needs” - also with a view to future empirical research.

About the NEXT funding framework: https://www.volkswagenstiftung.de/en/funding/funding-offer/next-law-bet…