Rethinking Justice Through Art, Legal Education and Informal Courts
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What happens when theatre, legal education and prison-based access to justice work are brought together in a setting where many people are waiting for trial, often with limited understanding of the legal process that shapes their lives?
This episode of the IN-CJ podcast returns to the Informal Justice Court project in Lagos, Nigeria, following an earlier discussion about the Dutch and Nigerian collaboration behind the initiative. Rather than retelling the whole project from the beginning, this conversation moves into the more reflective territory of practice, learning, trust, institutional access and impact. It asks how creative methods can help people understand justice processes, how legal and artistic practice can support one another, and what can be learned when work of this kind is examined across different justice systems.
The discussion brings together Xiaoye Zhang, Melle Smets, Joost van Onna and Funmi Ayeni. Xiaoye frames the conversation in relation to wider questions about theatre and performance in criminal justice settings, including her own work on prison theatre in China. Melle reflects on the artistic and social practice design of the project, and on the assumptions that Dutch collaborators brought into the Nigerian context. Joost contributes from the Dutch legal, prosecutorial and research perspective. Funmi Ayeni offers the central Nigerian access-to-justice perspective, drawing on her work with the Public Interest Law Partnership.
The strongest theme running through the episode is that this was not simply an “art in prison” project. It was a legal education project, an access-to-justice project, a cross-cultural collaboration and a public storytelling project. Theatre was not used as a decorative addition to legal practice. It became a way for people to understand, rehearse, question and humanise justice processes that can otherwise appear remote, intimidating or incomprehensible.
Funmi describes the work of the Public Interest Law Partnership as a public-private pro bono clearinghouse, focused on widening access to justice for people who may otherwise be left without legal support. Within that context, the Informal Justice Court project was able to connect with existing prison legal clinic work. This was crucial. The project did not simply arrive from outside with a new idea and expect the prison system to adapt around it. It had to be translated into an existing structure that prison authorities, legal actors and local partners could recognise.
That practical lesson is one of the most valuable points in the episode. International collaboration in criminal justice often depends less on the abstract quality of an idea than on whether it can be made to fit the institutional, legal and interpersonal conditions of a particular place. In this case, the project became possible because local partners understood how to build trust, how to manage permissions, and how to explain the work in terms that could be accepted by prison and justice stakeholders.
The discussion makes clear that Funmi’s role was not merely administrative or logistical. She acted as a broker between different worlds: legal practice, prison administration, government, international research, theatre practice and the lived experience of people in custody. Melle and Joost both reflect on the importance of this local knowledge. At points, Dutch collaborators had to learn that directness, which might seem efficient from one perspective, could disrupt the careful relationship-building needed in another context.
This is one of the broader lessons for international criminal justice work. Collaboration is not only a matter of bringing people together. It also requires translation between institutional cultures, legal systems, professional assumptions and informal power structures. Trust is not incidental. It is part of the method.
The episode also explores how theatre can support legal understanding. Through mock trials, role-play and performance, people in prison were able to encounter the court process in a different way. They could see the roles of judges, lawyers and prosecutors. They could rehearse the language and procedures of the courtroom. They could begin to understand what might happen to them, and what questions they might need to ask.
This matters because access to justice is not only about whether someone has a lawyer. It is also about whether they understand the process, whether they can participate meaningfully, and whether the system recognises them as more than a case file. Theatre, in this context, offered a form of legal education that was embodied, relational and practical.
The public performance that emerged from the project became another important focus of the conversation. Because of Covid restrictions and the practical limits of working inside prison, the original idea of prisoners performing directly for other prisoners had to change. Tunji Azeez and his theatre team developed a performance from the material and experiences generated through the project. Funmi describes the final public performance as a moment when the project came together, because it allowed senior justice figures, legal professionals and public stakeholders to see the issues presented in a form that was direct, recognisable and sometimes humorous.
That humour is significant. The performance did not simply denounce the justice system from the outside. It allowed people within and around the system to recognise its delays, contradictions and absurdities without immediately becoming defensive. In that sense, theatre created a space for critique that was public, but not merely accusatory. It opened a way to speak about procedural delay, legal confusion and institutional failure through story, character and shared recognition.
The episode is careful, however, not to overclaim impact. The project created learning, visibility and new forms of collaboration, but it did not solve the structural problems of pre-trial detention, under-resourced legal support or prison overcrowding. This caution is important. One of the ethical strengths of the discussion is that participants resist turning the project into a simple success story. Instead, they ask what it made possible, what it could not do, and what might be needed for similar work to continue.
Sustainability is therefore a recurring concern. Funmi raises the possibility of training people inside prison so that legal knowledge can be shared beyond the life of a funded project. She also discusses digital tutorials, prison-based courses, simple question-and-answer resources, certificates and other forms of legal education that could continue with fewer external resources. Melle recognises that theatre itself cannot be fully digitised, because live practice depends on trust, group work and presence. However, some elements of the legal education process might be adapted into more durable resources.
Xiaoye adds a further comparative dimension by reflecting on prison theatre work in China. Her contribution shows that similar questions arise in very different institutional settings: how external collaborators gain access, how trust is built, how projects survive changes in prison priorities, and how performance can be absorbed into existing prison culture. She also notes that prison officers themselves may become important continuity agents when they are interested in creative practice. This shifts the sustainability question away from funding alone and towards internal capacity, professional curiosity and institutional ownership.
The comparison with China also helps to avoid treating the Lagos project as a universal model. Funmi is clear that Lagos should not be taken as representative of Nigeria as a whole. Different regions have different legal, religious, cultural and political conditions. This is an important reminder for international audiences. The value of the project lies not in offering a template that can simply be exported, but in showing how justice, art and legal education can be brought together when local conditions are properly understood.
Joost’s reflections on legal systems add another layer. He contrasts the Dutch legal context, which he describes as more paper-based and less publicly performative in court, with the Nigerian context, where oral presentation, confidence and courtroom communication may carry a different kind of significance. Funmi clarifies that Nigeria does not have a jury system, but agrees that presentation before a judge still matters. This exchange opens an important question: in legal systems where speech, presence and performance shape how justice is experienced, can theatre help people understand not only the law, but their own position within the legal process?
For IN-CJ listeners, the episode offers several points for further reflection. It asks how justice systems can be made more intelligible to the people caught within them. It asks how creative practice can expose institutional problems without reducing them to slogans. It asks what ethical claims can reasonably be made about impact. It also asks how international collaboration can work without flattening local context or assuming that one jurisdiction’s methods can simply be transferred to another.
The discussion ultimately suggests that performance can make visible what criminal justice systems often obscure: uncertainty, waiting, fear, misunderstanding, institutional routine and the human need to be heard. It also shows that legal education is most powerful when it is not only informational, but participatory. People need to know what the system does, but they also need ways to rehearse, question and inhabit the roles through which justice is performed.
The Informal Justice Court project is therefore best understood as a carefully situated experiment in access to justice. It brought together lawyers, artists, researchers, prison officials and people in custody to explore how legal understanding might be deepened through creative practice. Its value lies not only in what it achieved, but in the questions it leaves open for future work.
How might similar approaches be developed in other justice settings? What forms of legal education are most useful for people awaiting trial? How can theatre support understanding without simplifying legal complexity? What responsibilities do researchers and artists carry when working with people in custody? And how can projects of this kind continue after the initial collaboration has ended?
These are not questions for artists alone, or for lawyers alone. They sit at the intersection of criminal justice practice, public legal education, institutional reform and human recognition. That is why this discussion is a valuable contribution to the wider IN-CJ conversation about international learning, comparative practice and the future development of justice systems.
