Enhancing Child-Friendly Access to Justice for Children in Family Law Proceedings: A Comparative Dialogue on Procedures and Best Practices in Lebanon and some European Countries

This paper highlights the results of a workshop organized by Terre des Hommes in Lebanon on December 2018. The workshop was part of the Access to Justice pilot interventions in Lebanon in 2018 that feed the design the new regional thematic approach on religious justice launched during 2019. The workshop was focused on the role that religious justice and key religious judicial actors play in juvenile justice system and within the formal justice system when applying traditional-based and religious precepts. What emerged from the workshop was that the complexity of the Lebanese justice system, characterized by a marked legal pluralism, and the lack of proper coordination and referral mechanisms between religious and criminal courts impact on the effectiveness and comprehensiveness of the responses provided by the Lebanese justice system to children accessing justice and its compliance with child-friendly justice minimum standards. Therefore, the necessity to promote platforms of dialogue, exchange, capacity building and coordination that include religious and civil and criminal judges.