The Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) takes a grassroots approach to human rights. It operates through a network of district-level law centres which engage in various projects including:
- Legal awareness: Each district centre conducts legal awareness programmes through village visits, awareness camps and a media van. It visits on an average 15 villages and conducts three awareness camps per month.
- Free legal service: Each district centre provides free legal services to underprivileged sections. During the tumultuous years of 2001 (Gujarat earthquake) and 2002 (Gujarat riots), the CSJ handled 1,800 cases, out of which 80 per cent were settled out of court or through arbitration.
- Public advocacy: District centres contribute to ongoing campaigns. It has partnered with the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR) for Dalit rights campaign by providing legal aid. It also campaigned for setting up state human rights commissions all over India, including Gujarat. Another important campaign it ran was for the implementation of the 73rd amendment of the Indian Constitution, which brought people’s planning to the forefront and paved the way for ensuring grassroots participation in governance. The centres have taken the help of media and local/ folk artistes to highlight human rights issues.
- Legal research: Each district law centre carries out research on an issue pertinent to its specific area of operation, ranging from prisoner’s rights and tribal land alienation to police atrocities and domestic violence.
- Strategic engagement with stakeholders: Each district centre identifies stakeholders to strengthen human rights by involving local bars, judiciary, academic institutions and media. Each centre makes four visits each month to these stakeholders.
- Investigation of human right violations: Each district centre identifies cases of gross human rights violations in order to proactively respond to them by effectively using legal and quasi-legal machinery. At least seven investigations into human rights violations are carried out by each district centre every year.