[TimorLesteStudies] ANU Seminar: Community Justice and Policing in Timor-Leste Friday 26 June

[Bu V.E. Wilson]

The Centre for International Governance and Justice and The Asia Foundation will be presenting a seminar titled “Community Justice and Policing in Timor-Leste”.
  
Speakers include: Silas Everett, Representative, The Asia Foundation, Timor-Leste and Thomas Parks, Regional Conflict and Governance Advisor, The Asia Foundation
 
  
More details: Silas Everett and Thomas Parks will speak about The Asia Foundation's access to justice program and community policing program in Timor-Leste, in particular about empirical evidence TAF has gathered through perception surveys on policing & law and justice in Timor-Leste. 
  
Time: 2:30 - 4:00 Friday 26 June
 Location: Seminar Room 1.13 Ground floor Coombs Extension Building # 9  
Background:   
As a country in transition from conflict to stability, Timor-Leste faces many challenges in ensuring access to justice for all. Many individuals' attempts to exercise fundamental rights through traditional dispute resolution mechanisms or through the nascent formal justice sector often fail due to limited financial resources, low awareness of options, and geographic isolation. The Asia Foundation through the USAID funded Access to Justice Program aims to bridge those gaps for vulnerable groups by funding pro bono legal aid services, supporting enhanced mediation services, increasing expertise to meet the particular justice needs of women, and increasing awareness of laws and legal procedures vital to secure livelihoods for vulnerable groups.
  
Still less than ten years old, the Timor-Leste national police force (PNTL) continues to face a range of challenges. At its inception, only one in ten officers of the 3,000-strong PNTL had previous policing experience. Since then, considerable assistance has been provided for training police officers, developing policy, and re-working the structure of state security institutions. Although vital, these technical efforts have not incorporated community-level and civil society actors, and much less attention has focused on assisting ‘community-police’ relations. Experience has proven that technical assistance to police alone is insufficient for improving security, and that it is also essential to develop a set of community-oriented norms and practices for the conduct of policing functions. However, while the PNTL is committed to working in a community-oriented manner, it lacks both the material and the means to do so. 
  
Scott Rutar

Centre Coordinator  
Centre for International Governance & Justice   
Regulatory  Institutions Network (RegNet)   
College of Asia and The Pacific  
Building 8 Coombs Extension  
The Australian National University   
Acton ACT 0200 AUSTRALIA 

  
T:  +61 2 6125 3556   
F:  +61 2 6125 1507  
W: http://cigj.anu.edu.au  
  
ANU CRICOS Provider No. 00120C 
  

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