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  • Essay / Telecom: the answer to legal illiteracy in Pakistan

    Even though a section of the population is deprived of the right to enjoy their fundamental rights, the issue of legal illiteracy is generally overshadowed by more pressing concerns regarding the judicial system; even if the difficulty posed is perhaps just as onerous. The degree of neglect towards conventional solutions ultimately leads to further regression. However, what if we could mobilize more unconventional means to increase legal literacy to counter the threat to civil justice in Pakistan? If the desired outcomes include increased access to justice and legal literacy, then telecommunications-based solutions are the tools of the trade. The process, however, involves identifying the impact of legal illiteracy on the current civil justice framework in Pakistan. According to the World Justice Project's Rule of Law Index for 2018-2019, Pakistan's civil justice framework was ranked 118th out of 126 countries considered. On criteria such as "accessibility and affordability", as well as "freedom from discrimination and corruption" within the civil justice system, Pakistan received an overall score of 0.38 out of 1.00 for civil justice. Measuring the “accessibility and affordability” of civil justice best illustrates this trend; despite a slight improvement from 2017-18 figures, Pakistan remained below regional and comparable average scores on income level. Apparently, despite minimal progress, the state of civil justice in Pakistan remains largely stagnant. Say no to plagiarism. Get a custom essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay In 2017, the Rule of Law Index's expanded general population survey illustrated alarming rates of access to civil justice in five urban centers of Pakistan; 82 percent of the sampled population reported having encountered legal difficulties in the two years preceding the survey. Disconcertingly, 86 percent of those who encountered legal problems took no legal action. Why then, despite the scale of the legal difficulties encountered, have legal avenues been largely neglected? The answer may be twofold: the fundamental factors being (i) the general state of literacy and (ii) the lack of legal knowledge among literate and illiterate populations. The latest Economic Survey of Pakistan reported a nationwide literacy rate of 62.3% in 2017-18. The figures suggest that, by default, 37.7 percent of the population has become legally vulnerable due to basic illiteracy alone. Coupled with archaic and inadequate guidance regarding the dissemination of laws to the public, a large portion of the literate population may also be excluded due to a lack of knowledge of relevant legal provisions. Additional constraints come into play when it comes to digital literacy; an aspect that takes into account the knowledge and skills necessary to interact with our technological ecosystem. In 2019, the Economist Intelligence Unit's Inclusive Internet Index ranked Pakistan 77th out of 100 countries considered globally for national Internet inclusion. The Internet Index mainly considered four parameters: “availability”, “affordability”, “relevance” and “readiness”. Despite the largely negative image of digital literacy conveyed by the Internet Index, the widespread use of mobile phones in cities and towns to?