Injustice in Person

There is a critical justice gap in the western world. Slow, overpriced, and even overdrawn legal systems are leaving more and more people 'outside the law'. Many people are responding with self-help as litigants. Legal systems are discomforted by this, and ill equipped to accommodate this modern day phenomenon. This important monograph starts in the right place: with the importance of access to justice. One distinctly arguable response is individualism, which then calls on these legal systems to accommodate it in a much fuller way than they presently have. This is an important and challenging book in the context of one of the important issues, not just for law, but of our time. * Hon Sir Grant Hammond KNZM, President of the New Zealand Law Commission, Sometime Dean of Law at the University of Auckland, Former Judge of the New Zealand Court of Appeal * From the domain of outliers to our legal system, Dr Assy constructs a careful analysis of the obligations of a just society to provide access to the legal system. What is fascinating in this book, and completely novel to the best of my knowledge, is to place the right to self-representation in the context of a failed regime of liberal individualism. The result is a delightfully unexpected series of arguments about the importance of a societal commitment to affordable and meaningful legal process. * Professor Samuel Issacharoff, Bonnie and Richard Reiss Professor of Constitutional Law, New York University School of Law * Injustice in Person challenges the received wisdom that the value of self-representation outweighs considerations of efficiency, of rectitude of decision, or of desirable outcomes. In so doing it lays the foundation for a more enlightened and better informed debate about legal assistance, which may well have far reaching consequences for the administration of justice. * Professor Adrian Zuckerman, Emeritus Professor of Civil Procedure, Fellow of University College, University of Oxford * Injustice in Person offers a path breaking analysis of the right to self-representation in the justice system. Drawing on examples from both civil and common law countries, Rabeea Assy provides a compelling argument for when litigants should not be allowed to represent themselves, in order to promote values of personal autonomy and procedural fairness. * Professor Deborah L Rhode, Director, Center on the Legal Profession, E W McFarland Professor of Law, Director of the Program on Social Entrepreneurship, Stanford University * Injustice in Person brings to the fore a central problem facing judicial systems around the world: how to respond when civil litigants have no lawyers to represent them. Ranging across continents, legal systems, and political theory, Dr Assy examines the law and history of the right to self-representation. This book clears a thicket of doctrine to offer a new and an insightful analysis of why self-representation is not a solution in theory or in practice for democracies, aspiring to provide effective access to judicial remedies. * Judith Resnik, Arthur Liman Professor of Law, Yale Law School * Rabeea Assys Injustice in Person addresses one of the most difficult problems currently confronting courts in common law jurisdictions. Lawyers, judges and court administrators face increasing numbers of litigants in person (LIPs). The presence of LIPs demonstrates our collective failure to realize the ideal of access to justice for all. Injustice in Person provides a refreshingly clear consideration of the seemingly intractable issues surrounding the phenomenon of LIPs from a rich variety of perspectives. . . Assy demonstrates a masterful command of the principles of civil procedure and their theoretical underpinnings. He skillfully dissects the arguments favouring the right of self-representation and exposes the hopeless plight in which we leave LIPs. * Robert Sharpe, Cambridge Law Journal * Rabeea Assys book is a refreshing and controversial challenge to the current orthodoxy. . . He has written a stimulating book from a new perspective. I warmly commend it to anyone who has a serious interest in access to justice issues. * Sir Rupert Jackson, Law Quarterly Review *