NCSC > Newsroom > News releases  > NCSC Helping Strengthen Lebanon Courts
Share
Contact: 
Sandy Adkins
Communications Specialist
National Center for State Courts
757.259.1515

NCSC Helping Strengthen Lebanon Courts

Williamsburg, Va. (October 20, 2009) — As part of an $8 million program implemented by the National Center for State Courts and aimed to strengthen judicial independence and citizen access to justice in Lebanon, retired Minneapolis Judge Steven Swanson recently spent several weeks conducting an assessment of the Lebanese legal aid system.  The program is funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

Judge Swanson was a legal aid attorney for 17 years before joining the Hennepin County, Minn. bench in 1989. While in Lebanon, he evaluated the country’s policies for recruiting and assigning lawyers to legal aid cases and studied the training legal aid lawyers receive. The goal of Judge Swanson’s work is that his recommendations to the Ministry of Justice and the Beirut Bar Association will ensure greater access to justice, improved legal representation, and a sustainable structure for legal aid in Lebanon.

Judge Swanson’s visit is a part of a broader $8 million program funded by USAID.  This program supports the efforts of the Lebanese judiciary to strengthen judicial capacity and infrastructure, increase independence and transparency, improve legal training, and expand access to justice for all. Judge Swanson also has served as a senior judicial advisor to the USAID-funded Afghanistan Rule of Law Project and as an international judge on the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

USAID and the NCSC also have started a $750,000 project to rehabilitate the Beirut Executions Court.  The project will finance the reconstruction and refurbishment of the Court, located in the Palace of Justice, and will provide information technology equipment and a modern case filing system at the Court.  

The National Center for State Courts, headquartered in Williamsburg, Va., is a nonprofit court reform organization dedicated to improving the administration of justice by providing leadership and service to the state courts. The National Center, founded in 1971 by the Conference of Chief Justices and Chief Justice of the United States Warren E. Burger, provides education, training, and technology, management, and research services to the nation’s state courts.

 

National Center for State Courts, 300 Newport Avenue, Williamsburg, VA  23185-4147