Legal Aid in Bangladesh: An Overview

Abstract

Legal aid is a mechanism of providing assistance to people litigants and justice seekers who are otherwise unable to afford legal representation and access to the court system. Our poor litigant people cannot meet the expenses of the high fees of lawyers ,as a result, they silently bear the of agonies and burns of injustice done to them in various spheres of life without any legal relief. This is nothing but a negation to them of one of their fundamental rights of equality before law and the equal protection of law. Legal aid is relatively a new phenomenon in Bangladesh compared to the centuries of old legal system in the country. In this article we have initially discussed the constitutional basis of Legal Aid in Bangladesh followed by an analysis of current legal provisions relating to state sponsored delivery models of legal aid in Bangladesh. We also presented a data sheet representing disposed and pending cases dealt by the District Legal Aid Committee of Chittagong.

DOI: 10.5901/jesr.2014.v4n3p279