ABSTRACT
Since 2016, the Litigants in Person in Northern Ireland (LIPNI) project has been exploring the experiences of litigants in person (LIPs) in civil and family cases in the jurisdiction. The first phase of the research focused on understanding whether going to court without a lawyer has an impact on the right to a fair trial under Article 6 ECHR. 4 In addressing this question, the research prioritised the concept of legal participation. The ability to participate is a basic feature of access to justice. It is not only a procedural tool for engaging in the proceedings but it is also related to perceptions of ‘fairness’ that access to justice demands as part of the social contract between citizens and state. 5 We found four main barriers to participating in legal proceedings: intellectual—not understanding the process; practical—not being able to access help or support; emotional—the process itself generating frustration, fear and anger on top of on-going stress around the reason for the litigation; and attitudinal—being stereotyped as difficult to deal with by other court actors. One of the greatest problems was that LIPs were expected to educate themselves on what they were required to do for each stage of their legal proceedings. Their inability to do so was seen as a failure on their part rather than an acceptance of their lack of familiarity with the system and the lack of available information or support.
