Law on Paper, Justice in Practice: The Gap Between Legal Rights and Reality

— SUNMISOLA

How far can a right written in law travel?

A right can be written clearly in the Constitution and still feel very far away from the person it was created to protect.

Nigeria has a constitutional framework that recognises fundamental rights and institutions responsible for protecting them. The Constitution is supreme, but the existence of a right does not automatically mean that an ordinary person knows the right exists, understands what it means, can realistically enforce it, or feels able to challenge the circumstances that threaten it.

And perhaps that is where the real gap begins.

Nigeria is a country of enormous diversity, with different ethnic groups, religions, beliefs, customs and social values. These realities shape how people understand their lives and their rights. A constitutional right does not exist in isolation from the society in which it operates.

So the question is not simply whether Nigeria has laws that protect rights.

The more difficult question is: what happens after the right has been written down?

How does it reach the person who needs it?

How does that person move from knowing that a right exists to actually relying on it?

And when they do, are the systems around them ready to respond?

This is the gap between legal rights and legal reality.

A right first has to be known

If a right is to travel from the Constitution into a person's everyday life, the first distance it has to cross is awareness.

A person cannot easily rely on a right they do not know they have. But legal awareness is more than knowing that a Constitution exists. It means understanding what particular rights protect, recognising when they may apply and knowing where to begin when they are threatened.

The World Bank has identified legal awareness and access to legal services as important elements of legal empowerment in Nigeria. It has also highlighted how the cost and complexity of accessing justice, as well as informal norms and social practices, can affect people's ability to use the law in practice.

The point is not that Nigerians know nothing about the law. The more important point is that a right can exist formally while remaining practically distant from the person it was created to protect.

Chapter IV of the Constitution recognises fundamental rights including the rights to life, dignity, personal liberty, fair hearing, private and family life, freedom of thought, conscience and religion, freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association, freedom of movement and freedom from discrimination.

These protections are significant. But writing a right into the Constitution is only the beginning.

If rights are meant to protect the public, the public should be able to understand them.

But awareness alone does not close the gap.

Awareness is only the beginning

Even when a person knows their rights, another problem appears:

Can they actually do something about it?

Knowing that the law provides a remedy is different from being able to obtain that remedy. Legal assistance may be expensive. Legal procedures may be difficult to navigate. A person may not know which institution to approach or what assistance is available to them.

This is why access to justice cannot be reduced to the existence of courts and laws.

Vivek Maru's review of World Bank practice identifies legal aid, information and education, alternative dispute resolution, court reform and public-sector accountability among the different elements of access to justice and legal empowerment.

Consider two people with the same legal right.

One has the information, resources and support to pursue a claim.

The other knows that something is wrong but does not know where to begin, cannot easily afford professional assistance and may not know what help is available.

Legally, they may have the same right.

Practically, they may not have the same opportunity to use it.

A right can therefore be known and still remain out of reach.

And even when it is within reach, there may be another obstacle: the society in which the person lives.

When societal constructs become part of the problem

Rights do not operate in a vacuum.

People live within families, communities and societies that shape what they consider normal, acceptable or worth questioning. In Nigeria, these influences can be significant because of the country's many cultural, religious and social traditions.

Some traditions coexist perfectly well with the rights protected by law. But some practices can place a person in a difficult position when what is accepted within a community conflicts with the protection that the law provides.

One example is harmful widowhood practices. Research on Nigeria has examined how some widowhood practices can threaten women's fundamental rights, including dignity and non-discrimination.

The issue is not that a particular community or culture is inherently opposed to rights. It is that a person who has grown up within a particular societal construct may encounter certain practices as familiar, expected or difficult to question.

The fact that something has been done for generations does not necessarily make it consistent with a person's legal rights.

That raises a difficult question:

How do we move from simply accepting what has always been done to asking whether what has always been done is consistent with the rights the law protects?

I do not think the answer is to dismiss culture or tradition. Nor is every cultural or religious practice a problem.

The point is that culture cannot become a reason for a person to lose the protection of the law.

Sometimes, we become accustomed to certain things. We see them happen repeatedly, hear people say that “that is just how things are,” and eventually stop asking whether they should be that way.

Sometimes, I think we adapt to what we have become accustomed to instead of questioning whether it should be that way or demanding accountability.

If legal rights are to become meaningful, people must not only know those rights. They must also be able to recognise when practices around them conflict with those rights and have the freedom and support to seek protection.

But what happens when a person is aware, willing to act and ready to seek protection, yet the institutions responsible for providing justice are difficult to reach or slow to respond?

That brings us to another part of the journey: bringing the law closer.

Bringing the law closer

The gap between rights and reality is too interconnected for one person, profession or institution to close alone.

Universities can play a role.

Basic education on constitutional rights should not be limited to law students. Universities are spaces where young people encounter ideas, institutions and perspectives beyond their immediate environments. Introducing basic rights education across disciplines could help students recognise the rights they possess and understand how those rights relate to everyday life.

But awareness is only one part of the journey.

Lawyers and legal-aid providers can help turn awareness into action by providing advice, representation and guidance on available remedies. NGOs and community organisations can help take legal information beyond formal institutions, connect people with appropriate services and draw attention to problems that might otherwise remain unseen.

Then comes the responsibility of government and justice institutions.

If citizens are encouraged to know and assert their rights, the institutions responsible for protecting those rights must be capable of responding. Accessible legal aid, effective justice institutions, adequate resources, accountability and procedures that people can realistically navigate are part of what makes rights meaningful in practice.

Nigeria has already seen an example of what cooperation can look like.

The Access to Justice for the Poor Project, implemented by the Legal Aid Council of Nigeria with World Bank support in Kaduna State, combined legal-aid services with community legal education, mediation, alternative dispute resolution and paralegal training. The project also used community partnerships and media to raise awareness of legal rights and entitlement to legal representation. It established 15 legal-aid centres and provided legal assistance to more than 830 poor people.

What stands out is not simply the number of people assisted.

It is the idea behind the intervention.

If people cannot easily reach the justice system, justice has to become easier to reach.

A university can help build awareness. A lawyer can help turn awareness into legal action. An NGO can help connect a person to information or assistance. Government can strengthen the institutions responsible for justice and make accountability a priority.

None of these efforts is sufficient on its own.

They become meaningful when they connect.

This is also why justice institutions matter beyond the courtroom. The World Bank notes that effective justice institutions can strengthen accountability and trust while providing redress for violations of rights. It also identifies legal empowerment, legal aid and mediation as parts of broader justice reform.

Perhaps, then, bringing the law closer is not about making one institution do everything.

It is about making sure that everyone who has a role to play actually plays that role—and that those roles connect.

Conclusion

How far can a right written in law travel?

Perhaps the answer is: as far as we are willing and able to take it.

Nigeria cannot change everything at once. We cannot change every institution, every community or every person overnight. But that does not mean that nothing can change.

We can take steps that make a difference.

A university can help students understand the rights they already possess, whether or not they study law. A lawyer can help make legal assistance more accessible. An NGO can take legal information into a community. Government can strengthen the institutions responsible for justice and make accountability a priority. And individuals can begin to question the things we have become so accustomed to accepting simply because they have always been that way.

None of these steps is enough on its own.

But perhaps that is the point.

The distance between law and reality is not created by one problem, so it cannot be closed by one solution. Awareness, access to justice, social change, institutional responsibility and accountability have to work together.

A constitutional right should not remain something that exists only because it has been written down. It should be something a person can know, understand, rely on and, when necessary, enforce.

So, how far can a right written in law travel?

Far enough to reach the person it was created to protect.

That journey may not happen all at once. But every time the law becomes easier to understand, justice becomes easier to reach, an institution becomes more accountable, or a person finds the confidence to question what they have always been told to accept, the distance becomes a little shorter.

And perhaps that is where meaningful change begins—not with changing everything at once, but with taking the next step.