Fact Sheet: Improving Pretrial Justice in Malawi

Over a period of ten years Malawi’s Paralegal Advisory Service Institute (PASI) has contributed to
reducing the percentage of detainees held in pretrial detention from around 60 percent to around 12 percent.

This fact sheet summarizes the successful results of a project that used paralegals to provide legal advice at police stations.

An external evaluation that followed the pilot concluded that PASI has contributed to significantly reducing the number of people held unnecessarily in pretrial detention, and to lowering the average time from arrest to case conclusion by one month.