OGP Coalition on Justice

Over the past few years, justice and promoting transparent, accessible and inclusive justice systems has become an increased focus in the open government community. With this in mind, the Open Government Partnership (OGP) created the OGP Coalition on Justice, a group of OGP members, civil society organizations, and other national and international partners advancing a people-centered approach to justice through their OGP action plans.

All OGP members currently co-creating or implementing justice commitments will be invited to join this coalition. Civil society, private sector representatives, and multilateral and global organizations engaged in these reforms, will also be invited to join meetings of the Coalition. 

As of October 2020, OGP national members co-creating or implementing justice commitments include:

Afghanistan, Albania, Argentina, Armenia, Burkina Faso, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cote d’Ivoire, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Ecuador, El Salvador, France, Georgia, Greece, Guatemala, Honduras, Indonesia, Jordan, Kenya, Kyrgyz Republic, Latvia, Liberia, Mexico, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Netherlands, North Macedonia, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Romania, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Tunisia, United Kingdom, Uruguay 

As of October 2020, OGP Local members co-creating or implementing justice commitments include:

Austin, United States; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Jalisco, Mexico; Tbilisi, Georgia

OGP members or other organizations that do not meet the criteria above can join meetings of the Coalition as observers. To indicate interest in joining a Coalition meeting as an observer, please complete the information in this form. 

The inaugural meeting of the OGP Coalition on Justice will be held virtually on Wednesday, October 21. It will be co-hosted with the Department of Justice Canada, a member and leader of the Coalition, during the Global Week for Justice.

In the run up to this inaugural meeting, the growing coalition of justice ministers and partners in OGP has met at key OGP and partner events, such as at a high-level roundtable at the OGP Summit in Ottawa. 

The Coalition’s members agree to work together on a number of strategies to advance justice through OGP such as:

• Promoting learning and exchange on policies and actions that improve access to justice, create open justice institutions, and ensure justice processes effectively open government. 
• Promoting new technologies, transparency, citizen participation and increased access to information and data to advance legal empowerment and access to justice.
• Increasing the number of justice-related commitments in OGP action plans that take a people-centered approach to improve access to justice, create open justice institutions, and/or ensure justice processes effectively open government.
• Growing the evidence-base by fostering research and data collection, including proper evaluation and monitoring, of justice-related commitments and activity and developing shared approaches to measuring results and impact.
• Leveraging the Joint Declaration on Open Government for the Implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and OGP’s peer-to-peer network of governments and civil society organizations to contribute to the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 16 and, in particular, the promise of justice for all by 2030.

Developed jointly by the Open Government Partnership and the Department of Justice Canada, the Terms of Reference serves as the guiding principles of the Coalition.