Objective
ALAC is an anti-corruption initiative providing free legal aid services to victims and witnesses of corruption and seeks to empower male and female citizens to demand accountability and transparency. It is a community service centre that offers both pragmatic services to individuals, communities, companies and institutions who are victims of corruption or witnesses to corruption by giving legal aid and advice. The advocacy aspect of the centre focuses on public education and prevention strategies based on cases and complaints lodged and collated by the centre on a quarterly basis. ALAC seeks to facilitate the engagement of the public in the fight for transparency and accountability and to provide legal advice to victims of corruption in Zimbabwe.
Target Group
Men, women and children who have either been victims or witnesses of corruption and are seeking redress or simply to expose the evil practice
Empowered citizens seeking to assert their rights and who would like to see a prosperous, corruption free Zimbabwe.
Modes of operation
To prevent false expectations from the clients, it is important to clarify ALAC’s capacities and limitations. ALAC empowers clients to pursue their complaints and as such, it plays a facilitation role in the client’s pursuant of their cases. The Centre assists clients to:
- Determine the strengths and weaknesses of the complaint
- Identify essential information/evidence i.e documents which can help strengthen the case and advice the client how to access them
- Understand the legal and administrative options available; help formulate, draft, submit and follow up official complaint letters (although the client remains the complainant).
- Link the client with relevant institutions when it is not possible to help, but there is clearly a case or an issue of public interest
- Forward the documents to the authorities for follow up (e.g client wishes to remain anonymous but there is a matter of public interest)
- Guarantee confidentiality of the obtained information source, with the exception of the information being used during any legal procedure by the courts
- Refer clients to relevant institutions if their complaints or cases are outside the jurisdiction of ALAC