HiiL has released the results of its three-wave Justice Needs and Satisfaction survey in Tunisia. For the first time, researchers tracked how the same people experienced justice problems over three consecutive years, capturing not just a snapshot, but a moving picture of how justice begins, stalls, and often remains unfinished. Between 2023 and 2025, more than 5,000 Tunisians shared their struggles with everyday justice. By the final wave, nearly 2,000 participants had completed the full journey, offering rare evidence of how unresolved problems weigh on households and shape trust in institutions over time.
Justice as a Process
Most surveys capture justice as static: one year, one set of numbers. But the JNS study shows that justice is lived over time, and often, it does not progress.
- In 2023, 77% of legal problems reported by Tunisians were unresolved (45% ongoing, 32% abandoned).
- By 2024, 66% of those same problems remained unresolved (46% abandoned, 20% ongoing).
- By 2025, even after three years, 62% were still unresolved, with half abandoned and just 12% still active.
This means that half of all legal problems reported in 2023 had never been resolved by 2025. When disputes did end, outcomes were uneven: only 48% of people felt their resolution was fair or very fair, while 37% described them as unfair. Justice in Tunisia, the data makes clear, is less a single moment of decision than a long journey, one that too often ends without closure.
Everyday justice problems dominate
The problems Tunisians face most frequently are not abstract legal questions but everyday disputes that affect dignity, livelihoods, and social cohesion. The JNS consistently highlights the same top issues:
- Neighbour problems: 22%
- Money and debt: 20%
- Public service and social welfare issues: 19%
- Employment problems: 17%
Across all three waves, neighbour disputes and social welfare problems in particular stood out as the most common challenges. Yet these are also the types of issues least likely to be resolved through courts or lawyers. A neighbour conflict seldom reaches a courtroom; a debt dispute can drag on for years; employment complaints may be handled in administrative channels but often without a sense of fairness.
The silent majority stays outside the system
Despite the scale of these problems, most people remain distant from formal justice institutions. Families and friends were consistently the first source of support across all three years. By 2025, just 7% of people turned to lawyers and only 4% went to court. This does not signal apathy about justice. Rather, it reflects low expectations of institutions perceived as costly, slow, and unresponsive. In practice, the quiet reliance on informal solutions amounts to a widespread vote of no confidence in the justice system.
A justice system that meets people where they are
The evidence points to a central challenge: Tunisia’s justice system is not designed around the problems people most urgently need solved. To restore trust, justice must be reimagined as people-centred, measured by outcomes that matter to households, not only by institutional performance. As Tunisia continues to face urgent economic pressures, social demands, and a pressing need to restore confidence in public institutions, justice is often treated as a background issue, secondary to politics or economics. But the JNS findings show that unresolved justice problems are themselves barriers to growth and stability.
Every unpaid debt, every unresolved neighbour conflict, every unfair dismissal erodes both social cohesion and economic resilience. Conversely, countries that have invested in people-centred justice have seen measurable benefits: reduced conflict, stronger communities, and faster economic recovery. Tunisia now has three years of evidence pointing directly to where such investment should begin. The JNS Tunisia 2025 report is not simply the conclusion of a study. It is an invitation to policymakers, practitioners, and donors to act on what Tunisians have made clear: justice is not a luxury. It is the foundation of fair societies and the engine of growth.
Read the full report here: Justice Needs and Satisfaction in Tunisia
