'There is nothing called Justice, until you buy it with wealth'.
It may seem like the expression of hopelessness from a desperate, aggrieved litigant in a country like Bangladesh, which lags behind in the standard of the global justice index.But in fact, it is a quote from a study based on the US judicial system.
According to a research article published in the Yale Law Journal, a guilty & rich person is in a relatively advantageous position than an innocent & poor person. The harshest sentences are usually received by the individuals whose lawyers are relatively weak; not the ones accused of the worst crimes.
It is said that the overall amount of resources the United States spends on ensuring legal aid for poor litigants is minimal compared to the expenditure on amending different legal frameworks or on physical infrastructure, such as the construction of buildings.
From the undesirable plight of a common litigant to seek refuge in law in an economically prosperous country like the United States, it is clear how difficult it is in other countries to seek legal assistance. However, we may have a lesson to learn from this dismal picture of a rich country.
Our Parliament passed the Legal Aid Services Act in the year 2000, with a vision to open doors to the right to access to justice for the common people. Certain regulations, rules and policies have been formulated under this Act from time to time. Legal aid committees have been formed not only at the national level or the Supreme Court, but also at the district, sub-district, and union levels of the country.
Several reforms have been made in terms of who is eligible for legal aid under the Act based on expert opinions and surveys. It is commendable indeed. In particular, the legal aid eligibility is being assessed not only on the basis of the annual income but also taking into account various socio-economic perspectives, which is better than before.
At present, the requirement of a minimum five years of experience may be relaxed for lawyers who will provide legal aid under this Act. Many may assert that lawyers with less experience may not be able to handle cases efficiently enough for their clients. But in this case, it should be noted that many times the strides of a new lawyer to fight and win the case may not be as evident as that of many experienced lawyers.
A major limitation of the current legal aid provision in Bangladesh is that there is only a nominal remuneration-based award for the legal aid lawyers.
But there are questions as to how effective it would be to encourage lawyers to provide legal aid in exchange of meager cachet, only under moral grounds. So it is high time to think of the other ways to incentivize lawyers who serve free legal aid.
A lawyer's track record of providing pro bono legal services should be taken into consideration for any government appointment, for example, for their enrollment as a 'Senior Advocate' or for appointment as a Judge in the High Court Division or for an appointment as a member of the National Human Rights Commission, etc. However, such changes to the existing laws will by no means be sufficient, unless our policy makers completely reform the concept and process of providing legal aid.
Statistics from the National Legal Aid Services Organization (NLASO) demonstrate that the number of beneficiaries under this organization's framework has increased significantly in the last two decades. According to statistics published by NLASO on 18 February, 2024, about one million people received various types of legal services under this organization from 2009 to January 2024.
But the limitation of these statistics is that there is no method to know how much the number of people receiving legal aid has increased in proportion to the total number of cases filed, or whether it is even increasing or decreasing at all.
From research report number 166 of the Bangladesh Law Commission published in 2023, it has been seen that the number of pending cases in our country is gradually increasing. Hence, there is no room for complacency merely because more and more people are seeking legal aid.
In this regard, there is an urgent necessity for our policy makers to take initiative on two fundamental issues. The presumption of only assisting the litigant to seek redress through a court or tribunal when their right has been violated - one needs to step aside from providing legal aid based on this narrow concept.
The idea that ordinary citizens must face lawyers for every matter to establish the rule of law - deserves strong reconsideration. This however, does not mean that the need for lawyers will disappear; rather, such a system would make people more conscious about their rights and expand their access to laws. This would in turn allow a more fruitful application of the funds allocated for providing legal aid.
It is often difficult for a commoner to even understand whether their legal right has been violated or not. With the progression of the country to a 'smart' Bangladesh, more opportunities need to be created for people to access legal information and services online.
From the wide use of the online calculator that has been introduced in determining Muslim inheritance, it can be assumed from this contextthat citizens are able to get some idea about the law even without going to the court for relatively straight forward matters.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, the Court had introduced the 'Use of Information Technology by Court Act, 2020' to perform online litigation processes.
Currently, there are no evident proceedings under this Act.
Therefore, increasing the budget for providing legal services and appointment of judges would further open the doors of legal aid or increase the speed of the disposal of cases - we need to think ahead of such one-dimensional concept. (This article is translated by Sayere Nazabi Sayem).
Rizwan is currently a Professor at the Department of Law, North South University. He has many books, monograph, journal articles, or book chapters published in reputed outlets such as Brill, Cambridge University Press, Elsevier, Kluwer, Oxford University Press, Routledge, and Springer
