On April 3, 2025, the kick-off meeting of the new project network within the program “Equal Opportunities and Diversity in the Legal System” took place at the premises of Stiftung Mercator in Essen. The network is funded by Stiftung Mercator and brings together different perspectives from academia, administration and civil society to jointly address structural issues of accessibility and justice in the legal system.
The meeting provided the participating projects with the opportunity to get to know each other personally, to present their respective approaches and to discuss possible overlaps and forms of cooperation.
The projects in the network:
Center for Diversity in Law
The Center, which is based at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg, sees itself as a scientific platform for issues of equal opportunities and diversity in the legal system. It bundles existing research, initiates new studies and promotes interdisciplinary exchange between academia, practice and civil society.
Diversitätsgerechte Justiz NRW
A project of the Ministry of Justice of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The aim is to promote diversity-oriented organizational development processes in the justice system and to reduce institutional and interpersonal risks of discrimination.
Recht effektiv
A project of the Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte e.V., which supports civil society actors in the legal treatment of structural discrimination. The focus is on promoting innovative legal strategies and making them visible to the public.
ACCICE | Accessible Justice
This initiative is committed to low-threshold access to justice – regardless of origin, status or language. The aim is to identify existing barriers and remove them with practical measures.
The kick-off meeting made it clear how diverse the thematic approaches within the network are – and at the same time how strongly they complement each other. The discussions revealed a shared interest in an in-depth exchange, synergies in public relations work and possible joint formats.
The Center for Diversity in Law would like to thank Stiftung Mercator for its initiative and support as well as for organizing this productive exchange. Further cooperation within the network provides a valuable basis for systematically strengthening equal opportunities and diversity in the legal system in a coordinated manner.
[Translated with DeepL]