Research Seminar in Sociology of Law with Julieta Marotta

• Attend the seminar online via Zoom

During the presentation, I would like to share preliminary ideas on a comprehensive framework on access to justice from a legal empowerment approach to understand the role of access to justice in the well-being of vulnerable groups. The theoretical framework is supported with empirical data from previous studies. The study disaggregates legal empowerment across three distinct levels: (i) an objective level, which includes the institutional elements of the relation between access to justice and vulnerable groups. This level uses law (legal provisions), and governmental and non-governmental (legal) organizations as units of analysis; (ii) a subjective level, which includes individual perceptions of the relation between access to justice and vulnerable groups. This level uses perceptions from drafters of the law, service and justice providers working in the organizations, and users of the law (focusing on vulnerable groups), as units of analysis; and (iii) a methodological level, which includes methodological research approaches that can contribute to the legal empowerment of vulnerable groups.

Julieta Marotta is an assistant professor at UNU-MERIT. Julieta holds a PhD from Maastricht University/United Nations University on access to justice and legal empowerment of victims of domestic violence. Her research interest is in inclusive forms of access to justice and legal empowerment through empirical legal research. Currently, she is undertaking research on access to justice for children.