1. Key findings & Introduction

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Key findings

75% of participants report experiencing one or more legal problems in the previous 12 months.
The most commonly reported legal problems are related to debt and money; neighbour disputes; and access to health, pensions, education and public services.
Public order and armed conflict problems are more visible in this online survey in comparison to the survey conducted in person. There might be less concern by participants to report such problems in an online survey rather than saying them out loud to an unknown enumerator.
Crime and misdemeanour problems are, on average, rated the most serious.
86% of people took some kind of action to resolve their problem. However, at the moment of completing the survey, half of all reported problems were not resolved.
Participants most often do not take action because they feel procedures are too difficult or they do not know what to do.
Acquaintances³ and talking to the other party are the most common sources of help.
Participants prefer non-institutional routes to try and resolve their problems, relying on their inner circle and direct negotiation.
Sources of help for the most serious problem are deemed “mostly helpful” or “very helpful”; taking action pays off.
Women, internally displaced persons, and those who cannot cover their basic needs financially are more likely to have unresolved and/or abandoned problems.
When a problem is resolved, the solution is predominantly deemed fair. Problem resolution is not guaranteed, but when it is reached, people mostly perceive the outcome to be positive.

Introduction

In 2023, the Hague Institute for the Innovation of Law (HiiL) supported USAID Colombia’s Inclusive Justice Activity by collecting justice needs data. The goal was to understand the justice journeys people in the municipalities where the programme operates are taking. Within this framework, an experimental, self-administered and online electronic Justice Needs and Satisfaction Survey (eJNS) was conducted.

The survey is considered experimental because it employs a rapid online data collection method that has not been used often in legal needs surveys. The aim was to obtain data on people’s justice needs to understand the types of legal problems people face and their experiences resolving these problems. The survey gathered data about the legal needs of people living in 75 municipalities in Colombia.

The eJNS can be a valuable tool for obtaining more frequent, quick snapshots of a non-representative sample’s current state of justice needs and even providing insights into changes over time. There is a space for tools like the eJNS when populations are hard to reach, when resources for more representative surveys are lacking, or when other obstacles exist because justice needs do not cease to exist when they are not measured.

In Colombia, both an eJNS and a JNS (Justice Needs and Satisfaction) survey were carried out in 2023, with overlapping data collection periods. The JNS was administered via face-to-face interviews to a representative sample of people in 16 municipalities where the Inclusive Justice activity operates. By providing reliable, representative data, a JNS survey is a useful tool for informing policymakers and designing people-centred justice programmes.

The almost simultaneous administration of the two surveys provided an opportunity to compare their results, revealing both differences and similarities. For example, the eJNS presented a higher problem prevalence than the JNS⁴, as well as differences in the most common problem categories, which could be explained by the expanded geographic reach, the differences in the sample, or by self-selection bias. However, these differences do not contradict the JNS results. In several cases, the eJNS findings support the JNS findings. Some such similarities include: the resolution rate of all problems (approximately half of problems are resolved) and in the prevalence of direct negotiation as a resolution mechanism.

Certain differences are expected and require complementary sources of information to contextualise and understand them better. To accomplish this for the eJNS, the research team conducted three follow-up interviews to deepen the analysis and obtain information that the data alone could not provide.

This report is divided as follows: section two presents the methodology: the structure of the survey, the limitations and characteristics of the study sample. Section three explores respondents’ legal problems; section four continues with the most common types of legal problems, and section five discusses the severity of reported legal problems. Section six discusses actions taken, sources of help consulted, and dives into the semi-structured interviews conducted to provide qualitative context to the actions. Section seven presents anticipated legal problems from participants who reported having no problems at the time of the survey. Section eight closes the report by offering conclusions derived from the data presented.