The Role of Insurance in promoting Citizens’ Access to Civil Justice

The necessity for paying costs such as court costs is a major obstacle in people’s access to justice. As the costs of society and justice’s administration increase, in the one hand providing legal aid by government has faced challenge and in the other hand, scholar’s effort to ensure procedural human rights and promoting individual’s access to court amounted to devising new form for funding litigation costs. One way for prevailing individuals financial inability for litigation and government’ scarcity to provide them the aid, is to privatize funding the costs which can include various mechanisms such as conditional fee, third party funding or legal expense’s insurance (LEI). Insurance coverage can be before or after the dispute, in the same time the coverage may be in the form of package deal insurance or free-standing contract. In Iran law, in addition to the foreseeability of covering these costs in the form of package deal insurance by central insurance’ regulations, the free-standing contract has been provided by some insurers. It appears this type of insurance should be considered a valid contract too, according to freedom of contracts and its congruence with mandatory rules on the one hand, and its suitable function in facilitating individuals’ access to court, preventing self-help and meeting public order on the other hand.