The Citizens Bureau for Development and Productivity (CBDP) developed from the restructuring and reforming of the New Liberia National Police (LNP) since 2009. Citizens Bureau with no formal connection to the LNP, is a nongovernmental, nonpolitical, not-for-profit civil society and humanitarian organization seeking to advance the rule of law, promote civil justice, citizens police relations and to
eradicate poverty in Liberia through community justice initiatives by addressing local disputes and needs in collaboration with civil society partners and members of the formal legal system. Citizens Bureau believes that the formal justice system should be accessible to all citizens regardless of income, socioeconomic class or background in life, thus ensuring that nobody is left behind. Unfortunately, question of legitimacy and affordability are major challenges with the formal justice system in Liberia. When citizens are aggrieved and confronted with legal challenges, they are often deprived of justice because of the extensive bureaucratic red tape and unseen additional costs including transportation, legal fees and opportunity costs of foregone work. Liberia's current justice system remains both physically and financially inaccessible to many. As pointed out in the UNDP/UNMIL strengthening the rule of law in Liberia project documents, "the formal justice system in Liberia was perennially weak even before the civil war" In a 64-page report published by Human Rights Watch, "No money, no justice, Police corruption and abuse in Liberia," describes the multiple criminal activities by corrupt police officers, from charging crime victims for every stage of an investigation, to extorting goods from street vendors. Similar accusations are also attributed to the court and this has greatly undermined every sense that wrong doing will be punished. It has hallowed out trust in public processes more broadly. Overcrowding in prisons is another consequence of the lack of a true justice system as people languish behind bars without effective due process of law. There are also people in prison who committed crimes and, then, when released, continue to commit crimes due to the lack of skills training and rehab programs. Given widespread public distrust of the formal justice system, mob justice leading to deaths and the destruction of property often takes place. Founder of Citizens Bureau as a Police Officer, have realized that the status quo of putting people who commit minor offenses behind bars without the due process of law is unproductive for society. These reasons compel the establishment of the Citizens Bureau and Community Justice Teams (CJT) project so every day citizens can have access to redress grievances through improved relationship between formal and informal justice mechanism in Liberia, such that, promote the rule of law. As shown in the USIP perception of justice report (2009), Liberians pursue justice almost entirely in informal ways. Our work helps to bridge the gap between informal and formal justice processes by both strengthening and providing procedures for trust-building and mediation and by working with the formal justice system to reduce case loads and improve efficiency. This work is also directly in line with the goals of the UNDP/UNMIL Strengthening the Rule of Law in Liberia: Justice and Security for the Liberian People programmed document in that we are boosting the grassroots demand for justice. The project is impacting members of the informal economy in terms of time and money save to the parties. Therefore, the Citizens Bureau seeks to combine formal and informal justice system for greater accountability in the dispensation of justice, especially in low income communities where ordinary men, women and youths who cannot afford the formal justice system can have an alternative option in seeking redress to grievances, as deemed satisfactory to the conflicting parties without necessarily standing before a judge in the formal law court. Since 2014, Citizens Bureau in response to the growing demands of some of these communities seeking free and fair redress, partnered with Accountability Lab Liberia and created the Community Justice Teams (CJTs). the Citizens Bureau as a community justice advocacy group worked in low income and densely populated communities to train and support a group of citizens as part of these CJTs in Logan Town, West Point, Gbarnga and Kakata. These teams consist of 8 mediators and 1 team leader in each community for a total of 36. The age of the mediators also reflect the demographics and societal structures to ensure that the mediators are both accessible (everyone in the community feels there is someone they can speak to about their disputes) and have the authority to support effective mediation (in some cases older members of the community may be over represented, given the authority afforded to them) The mediators range in age from 18 to 70. In conversation with a beneficiary of the CJT project, he noted: "I do not go to the police or the courts since they charge me money illegally-but this mediation center was established in my community and it is free." In very low income community where this project is being executed, disputes are frequent and other traditional justice mechanisms which still endure in rural areas are often absent because of the more transient, multi-ethnic, multi-linguistic nature of communities. In a country where most people cannot afford the formal justice system for the redress of grievances, as opposed to taken the laws into one own hands, the goal of the Citizens Bureau community Justice Teams is to increase access to justice by affording conflicting parties the opportunity to resolve their differences in ways deem satisfactory to them without necessarily having to stand before a judge in the formal court of law. We have established a justice mechanism that is accessible, close and understand the particular realities of the people thus, promoting peaceful coexistence whilst also saving marginalized, poor and insecure community residents time, legal fees and unseen additional cost they would have otherwise spent navigating the formal justice system. By resolving disputes before they reach the courts, and by working with the local police to feed cases back down to the mediators, is reducing the burden off the formal justice system, underpinning justice and advancing good governance and trust to transform lives through enhanced accountability, transparency, and inclusive access to information and justice. And by supporting institutional capacity building of the Liberia National Police, through the mediators working with the local police stations, satisfy accountability and transparency at the frontlines of justice . we are also strengthening capacity of the civil society to engage with their communities to deliver quality legal aid services to disadvantage individuals thereby supporting an enabling environment conducive to increasing citizen oversight through community access to justice and engagement with informal justice actors and processes. The cases we mediate are civil cases. Potential criminal cases brought to the attention of the mediators are referred to the police.
