Jamie Gamble, director of the Justice Index Project of the National Center for Access to Justice, wrote an op-ed for Breaking Views explaining how states can prepare for financial crises and protect the most vulnerable.
One lesson of 2008 is that financial crises break many critical grass-roots economic relationships. A person can’t make rent, leading to eviction. A homeowner can’t pay the mortgage. Credit card holders can’t make payments. The hardware store can’t pay suppliers.
In every economic crisis, the pain of those broken relationships falls hardest on the people on the most vulnerable end of the economic chain: those who have least. The sense that recovery from the 2008 financial crisis benefitted the rich and left the rest behind remains a source of deep anger for many. This time, we have to do better.
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Justice will not be served if courts across a state are overwhelmed by a surge of cases with complex and unfamiliar issues. States should designate a specialized group of courts and judges to handle all the Covid-19 related cases. These crisis resolution courts should apply special procedures to ensure the unique circumstances of the crisis are always fully considered. Judges in the specialized courts will quickly become expert in the Covid-19 issues, making the system more efficient.