Goal 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions

What Goal 16 asks for

Goal 16 is the goal about how a society is governed, and it splits into three parts. The first is safety: significantly reducing all forms of violence and related death rates, and ending abuse, exploitation, trafficking and all forms of violence against and torture of children. The second is justice and the rule of law, including a target on equal access to justice for all, one on reducing illicit financial and arms flows and combating organised crime, and one on substantially reducing corruption and bribery in all their forms. These are not abstractions in practice: a person who cannot get a first information report registered or afford a lawyer is outside the justice system regardless of what the law says.

The third part is about institutions themselves. The goal asks for effective, accountable and transparent institutions at all levels; for responsive, inclusive, participatory and representative decision-making; for stronger participation by developing countries in global governance; for legal identity for all, including birth registration, which is what makes every other entitlement claimable; and for public access to information and the protection of fundamental freedoms. Two further targets ask for national institutions with the capacity to prevent violence and combat crime and terrorism, and for non-discriminatory laws and policies.

Goal 16 in India

Two Indian legal frameworks map directly onto Goal 16's access to justice and access to information targets. The Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987 creates a statutory system of free legal aid administered by the National Legal Services Authority and its state and district counterparts. Section 12 of the Act sets out who is entitled to it, and the list is broad: members of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, women and children regardless of income, persons with disabilities, victims of trafficking, industrial workmen, people in custody or in protective or juvenile homes, victims of mass disaster, ethnic violence, caste atrocity, flood, drought, earthquake or industrial disaster, and people below prescribed income ceilings. The same system runs Lok Adalats for settling disputes by compromise and trains para legal volunteers drawn from communities, including retired teachers, Anganwadi workers, self-help groups and panchayat members, to bridge the gap between authorities and the public. Separately, the Right to Information Act, 2005, administered through the Department of Personnel and Training with the Central Information Commission and state commissions as appellate bodies, gives citizens a time-bound route to government information.

The gap Goal 16 identifies in India is generally not the absence of a law but the distance between the law and an ordinary person. Case pendency, cost, distance from a court, and unfamiliarity with procedure keep people out of the system; legal identity documents that a household does not have block access to schemes and services; and the groups most likely to face violence are the least likely to reach a remedy. Non-profits accordingly work on paralegal and legal aid services at village and settlement level, documentation and identity support, child protection and child rights, anti-trafficking and rehabilitation, prison legal aid and undertrial support, victim compensation claims, and transparency and accountability work that uses the Right to Information Act and social audits to check how public money is actually spent.