1. Background of the Existence of People's Legal Aid Assistants (PHR)
People's Legal Aid Assistants (PHR) emerged from the awareness that the management of natural resources has long marginalized and neglected the people, including Indigenous communities and women’s groups as the primary rights holders. Therefore, there is a need to reposition the people as the main actors and foundation in the management of these natural resources. These actors are embodied in the figure of the People’s Legal Aid Assistant. Such assistants are expected to make efforts to empower people’s legal resources and/or pursue state legal reform towards social and ecological justice in a directed, systematic, effective, and efficient manner.
The discourse surrounding PHR has experienced ups and downs, even though in practice PHRs continue to work and carry out their duties. As part of reviving the intellectual discourse on PHR, PHRs, facilitated by Perkumpulan HuMa, held a series of reflection and consolidation processes. These meetings were held sequentially in Makassar, South Sulawesi (22–23 December 2023), Padang, West Sumatra (25–26 December 2023), Pontianak, West Kalimantan (8–9 December 2023), and Yogyakarta (26–28 March 2024). The consolidation and reflection were attended by PHRs (from villages, academia, and organizations) as well as partner institutions, who together re-examined the direction of the PHR movement and revisited the concept of PHR. From this series of meetings, a number of key points were formulated as described below.
2. Definition of PHR
The definition of PHR has been formulated many times in various forums. However, the common thread across these formulations is that it is based on the daily experiences of People’s Legal Aid Assistants in carrying out their roles and responsibilities. Whether as assistants for people’s law, or as legal assistants for the people. In addition to being grounded in daily experiences, the formulation is also based on PHRs’ reading of the political, social, cultural, and other factors at the time of its articulation.
At present, PHR is understood as: “People who work within the social movement to empower inclusive people’s legal resources and/or to reform state law towards social and ecological justice.” Operationally, it can also be said that a PHR is anyone who restructures unjust legal systems (whether state law or community law) and rebuilds them into laws that are more socially just. According to this definition, a PHR does not necessarily have to be a law graduate or hold a university degree, but rather individuals who possess the following basic characteristics:
- Affirming the rights of Indigenous and local communities over land and natural resources as the primary focus of PHR’s work;
- Affirming the need for autonomous spaces for the exercise of rights as a necessary condition;
- Advocating for the recognition of local laws as a sufficient condition for the exercise of Indigenous and local communities’ rights over land and natural resources;
- The target and subject of PHR work are Indigenous and local communities; and
- The approaches and methods used are rights-based approaches and participatory methods.
3. The Importance of PHR
People's Legal Aid Assistants (PHR) play a vital role in realizing legal reform that is rooted in ecology and community. PHRs serve as facilitators for the people in building a just social order through the structuring of natural resource management systems that place the people as both the main actors and the central foundation. Such work must be based on clear and concrete mandates from organized community groups.
4. Roles of PHR
More specifically, PHRs can perform the following roles:
- Raising Community Awareness: PHRs work to build the critical awareness of Indigenous and local communities in understanding, accessing, and utilizing available resources, including legal resources. Through this awareness, communities recognize their rights, understand that these rights are protected by law, and can defend and fight for them through state legal mechanisms as well as people’s legal mechanisms.
- Returning Law to the People: PHRs work to return law to the people by strengthening people’s law, engaging in dialogue with state law, reforming law at both state and community levels, and promoting rights-based, participatory, inclusive, and gender-just approaches.
- Defending Community Rights: PHRs act as legal assistants for Indigenous and local communities, accompanying them in the struggle to assert and defend their sovereignty and rights over natural resources, as well as pursuing community- and ecology-based legal reform.
- Building Social Movements: PHRs work to build strong social movements by strengthening existing community resources, reinforcing people’s law, and engaging in dialogue with state law so as to advance fairer legal reform and return the sovereignty of the people to its rightful holders.
- Documenting, preserving, developing, disseminating, and campaigning for community resources, including their laws, and utilizing them for the greatest possible benefit of the people.
- Undertaking other efforts possible in the social, cultural, legal, and political spheres within the framework of the struggle to defend or restore people’s sovereignty.
Thus, the existence of PHR is crucial for realizing social and ecological justice, as well as strengthening the position of Indigenous and local communities in accessing and defending their rights.
5. Purpose of Developing the PHR Model
To build a systematic, measurable, and sustainable model for the development of PHR.