User:Gascuen/Clínica Jurídica per la Justícia Social de la Facultat de Dret de la Universitat de València

The Legal Clinic for Social Justice of the Faculty of Law of the Universitat de València is a space for promoting excellence in terms of graduate and postgraduate education. The students give advice for free under the supervision of professors and experts linked to the Universitat de València. The project was part of the programme Campus d'Excel·lència Internacional “VLC/CAMPUS. València, International Campus of Excellence”, which nowadays is a project of the Faculty of Law of the Universitat de València.

Since 2006, this innovative teaching activity has been offered. It uses the clinical methodology for the legal practice of Law students, while it gives free advice to NGOs, non-profit organisations and people without economic resources or in risk of exclusion.

The education model chosen by the Legal Clinic relates Law studies with the legal reality by offering to the students the possibility to know and be involved in real cases, especially in disadvantaged collectives. The objective is training jurists who are socially committed and aware of the inequalities and the fight against injustice. This means that they have a higher social awareness, in accordance with the social objectives of the public university. Interactive methods are used in the clinic methodology to teach the abilities and the necessary competences for the legal practice. In this way, students have the opportunity to work with real clients while their duties are supervised and guided by legal experts and professors within a well-structures and coherent system. Learning the method of the clinic is an educational experience process (learning by doing)

Public Interest Clinic
The Public Interest Clinic works in social cases of general interest. The clinic carried out a well-committed legal practice in which the jurist is recognised as an agent of change who is aware of his importance of having an impact on reality and therefore for modifying it.

We work very close with social movements and groups of citizens that are involved in the fight for social justice and human rights. The clinic of public interest aims to increase the protection of disadvantaged groups so that the quality of democracy and the legal system, which guarantees fundamental rights, can be increased.

The Public Interest Clinic also works thanks to the strategic litigation to build the lines of defence from paradigmatic cases of violation of fundamental rights and aiming to take political and legislative actions.

The Public Interest Clinic deals with environmental and urban development cases (road of Oliva, La punta, PAI of Benimaclet) cases of right to housing (Impagats), historic memory (APDHE), healthcare (sexual and reproductive education) and deciding judgements of Amicus Curiae (case Equador).

International Human Rights Clinic
The International Human Rights Clinic deals with humanitarian cases that require transnational lines of action. In this sense, the clinic uses all the mechanisms of protections that are authorised by International Law to guarantee Human Rights and the protection of the most vulnerable. In order to do so, the clinic gives advice and support to the victims who have suffered severe violations of human rights; researches and writes reports of technical support to other institutions, organisations and NGO; participates in amicus curiae before regional courts, the action before specialised bodies of UN (Council of Human Rights, committees of agreements, rapporteurs...); collaborates in the different phases of strategic law suits... The clinic conducts all this tasks in order to explore the most suitable international lines of action in order to demand justice and obtain compensation.

Students of the Prison Law Clinic have the opportunity to put into practice their undergraduate theoretical studies of penal issues. This practice consists in writing simple legal reports of advice in collaboration with the NGO “Iniciatives solidaries”. This NGO trains inmates of the Correctional Centre of Picassent, who help other inmates to write down these reports. In this way, our students are involved in advisory works. In addition, it also collaborates with the Centre of Social Inclusion Torre Espioca, where students are tutored by the jurists of the centre.

Live Client Clinic
The Live Client Clinic deals with social cases set out by non-profit organisations in relation with situations of discrimination or social injustice affecting an individual or a small group. The university community can also access to the Clinic, if their problems fulfil the requirements of the Criteria of Admission.

Migration Clinic
The Clinic of Immigration Matters started up in 2009 and works for the defence of migrants’ rights. This is the reason why it provides full training mainly in terms of nationality and immigration matters, although it also gives additional training in asylum and refugees (international protection). Its main activity is to collaborate with entities of the third sector that work with this collective (Creu Roja, Lambda, Buscant Alternatives, Pobles Units, CESIDA…). As a result, they participate actively in the campaigns organised by these organisations for the recognition of migrants, they train their members and write reports and proposals to improve the implementation of the existing legal regulations. The clinic is characterised by using the methodology Street Law (Legal Basis) to provide foreigners training in rights and duties, in several branches of law, and training in civil society on the situation of foreigners in Spain.

How to participate in the clinic?
If you like our activities and you want to link yourself with us, you can do it by means of the Practicum. The Legal Clinic for Social Justice is offered as a place for mandatory curricular undergraduate internships for the degrees of Law, Law + Business, Law + Political Sciences, Law + Criminology and Pedagogy. This link will allow the student to fully participate in all the activities that were carried out.

Publications
Here you can find the platform where the reports made by the students of the Clínica Jurídica per la Justícia Social of the Universitat de València are published, with the aim of making them public and that anyone interested can consult them. More information about the ClinicEste espacio pretende ser la plataforma donde se publiquen los informes realizados por los y las estudiantes de la Clínica Jurídica per la Justícia Social de la Universitat de València, con el objetivo de hacerlos públicos y que cualquier persona interesada pueda consultarlos. Más información sobre la Clínica