Access to Social Justice: Effective Remedies for Social Rights

Social rights and social justice suffer from an accountability gap in the UK. The failure to address this accountability gap places the burden of violations on the most marginalised in society. Without the appropriate legal structures and institutional mechanisms to adequately address this gap we leave the burden and the brunt of violations to be addressed by those at the front line who are essentially left without appropriate means to support those who need it most. People facing social rights violations are the people most likely to face structural intersectional injustice and barriers on the basis of immigration status, disability, gender, age, ethnicity, socio-economic disadvantage among others. They may be at risk of homelessness, face significant debt, experience in-work poverty, or be fleeing domestic abuse. Their situation is compounded by the fact they face clustered and systemic injustice but the legal system is individualised and siloed into distinct ‘legal problems’ unfit for purpose to address violations of social rights.

The impact of this can be seen across many areas of society not least in the wake of the cost of living crisis and the legacy of austerity and covid. This book draws on research conducted at the front line with practitioners who support those facing social rights violations and in so doing delves deeper into the accountability gap and proposes routes to overcome the access to justice barriers. It highlights discourses that marginalise and disempower rights holders and demonstrates the importance of reclaiming the narrative around social rights violations. It therefore presents as an indispensable tool to anyone interested in tackling social justice using the UK’s international social rights legal obligations as a vehicle.

In this book we propose framing access to social justice as a journey that should end with the realisation of an effective remedy, including collective and structural social justice, something that the system is not currently equipped to deliver. In so doing the book aims to reframe the way we think about social rights and reconceptualises justice as constituting a social rights and social justice component.