Law is not Enough! From Legal Aid to a Network of Legal Services: An overview of the system of access to family and children law and justice in Portugal

Abstract

Over the last 30 years, family as an institution has mutated, not only due to changes occurring at the internal level, but also as a result of European and global movements. Thus, at the beginning of the 21st century, we are confronted with new flexible and fluid family scenarios, within which the deinstitutionalization of family, the democratization of family life, the valorisation of affection in detriment of hierarchy and tradition, and consequently the dejudicializing of the regulation of family conducts and a progressive tendency towards the negotiation of news forms of family organization gain significance. Thus, the awareness and understanding of what kind of mechanisms citizens can use in order to defend their rights in this important social area, i.e., to analyse how access to law and justice takes place in such system, identifying the roles played by the actors and the institutions, becomes increasingly important.