Law Vision
Legal aid: Popularize its use
Akramul Islam
To get the justice prerequisite is access to justice. Ensuring the right of access to justice for the citizens is fundamental for establishing a discrimination free society. But unfortunately the poor and disadvantaged portion of the society is always denied the path to move to the court due to their economic instability and inability. Ultimately the social mechanism compels them to compromise with their situation. The modern justice system through judicial adjudication is very costly and that cost has been the most difficult factor for the average people to get justice both in developing and developed country. Therefore to vindicate their rights and uphold dignity it is essential to assist them to put their footstep before the court house. Our constitution guarantees the equality before law and equal protection of law but what in reality is different from theory. The constitutional guarantees seems merely as black letter when we see that bulk of the indigent litigant either fails or stop at mid in their travel to get justice. Here comes the concept of legal aid, not as charity but as rights, to arm the poor and disadvantage in the battle of litigation.
In our system justice delivery is always time consuming and the litigants requires passing of various step of a long stairs. And in each step numerous money eater demons eagerly awaits for them whom the litigants needs to satisfy. Therefore, poor and indigent litigant hardly dare to knock at the door of court as they cannot afford to pay lawyers, court fees and other incidental charges like conveyance cost, collection of document, copying them etc. They can never stand in a level playing field with his affluent opposition. It is simple to realise that how a pauper will struggle in court room where he/she is struggling to afford his minimum basic human needs and that's why they often left to bear the agonies of injustice silently. The constitutional guarantee, therefore, also proves here far away from practical. For these reasons, to address this problem and ensuring access to justice for poor and disadvantaged people the government activated legal aid services by enacting Legal Aid Services Act-2000[LASA]. The Act intends to provide legal aid services to the poor to institute and defend suit in court.
Concept of Legal Aid: Legal aid helps with the cost of the legal advice which a litigant fails to afford it. In plain meaning legal aid means any sort of legal assistance or legal representation in favour of poor litigants both in inside and outside of the court. The assistant may be of rendering legal advice, engaging lawyer, legal help etc. but not hand cash; rather it is kind of procedural assistance in litigation where cost is provided either by non government or government actor. The basic purpose of legal aid is to enable an indigent litigant to enjoy and vindicate his constitutional as well as other laws rights for uniformity of law application.
The Legal Aid Services Act-2000
The Legal Aid Services Act -2000 has been enacted in order to provide legal advice and support to people who are incapable of seeking justice due to financial difficulties, destitution, helplessness and for various socio-economic conditions. With a view to implement the legal aid program across the country a statutory body called National Legal Aid Services Organization (NLASO) has been established whose administration and function is vested upon National Board of Management consisted of 19 members. Fund is allocated in 64 districts to the District Committee headed by respective District Judge with members from government officer, lawyer, voluntary and woman organization respectively. To spread the activities of legal aid program at grassroots level upazilla and union committee is also working under this Act. To conduct the suit lawyer is appointed from a panel of experienced lawyer. According to the Act nature of the legal aid provided to the people are following - Providing legal assistance and advice in a litigation to be filed, filed or pending before any court of law; Giving honorium to any conciliator or arbitrator appointed to conciliate or mediate any case under the provisions of section 89B of the Code of Civil Procedure-1908; Providing any other incidental cost including expenditure of the case; Providing the honorium to the appointed lawyer.
How to apply and who can apply? As per the provision of this Act the application asking for legal aid is to be submitted either in prescribed form or in plain paper mentioning name, address and reason for invoking legal aid either to the Board or District Committee. If the subject matter is in the Supreme Court then it is to be made to the chairman of the organization and if in any other court then to be made to the Chairman of the District Committee. The application placed before the committee is considered in next meeting. In the event of rejection of the application by the District Committee the applicant may prefer appeal to the Board within 60 days from the date of decision and Boards' decision will be final.
Who will be eligible to get legal aid is mentioned in Legal Aid Policy- 2001. According to the Policy the following persons can avail legal aid assistance- Freedom fighters disabled, partially disabled, unemployed or unable to make yearly income above 75000 tk; Individual receiving old age allowance; Distressed mother holding a VGD card; Woman and children victim of trafficking and acid throwing; Allotee of a house or land in a model village; Insolvent widow and woman abandoned by husband; Person with financial insolvency; A detainee without trial and unable to take self defense for financial insolvency; Person considered by the court as financially helpless; Person recommended or considered as insolvent by jail authority; Person considered eligible for legal aid by the institution due to their insolvency, helplessness or socio economic backwardness. It is mentionable that in this regard insolvent or financially insolvent person means person whose annual average income is not above 50000 tk.
Undoubtedly Legal Aid Act is a praiseworthy pro-poor initiative of the government. But yet it is to be proved as a successful program. It cannot be denied that the Act has some shortcomings but the question is, did we make a proper use of what we have? Positive answer cannot be expected here because we see that legal aid program is yet peculiar to the beneficiaries for whom it is activated. This program is alien at grassroots level due to the absences of proper mechanism of awareness rising. They don't know how to apply and where to apply; local administration is unwilling to let people know about this. That's why the village people prefer to resort to their traditional justice system rather formal justice system. Although they frequently denied the true justice but less consuming of time, no cost at all persuade them to resort on age old system which itself contribute to the violation of human rights . It is the common people whose awareness is most important in carrying out this activity. Therefore what should be done is to create awareness and it must get the top priority. But it is not easy to build aware and put forward the information among people on the part of the government only rather it is a matter of coordination among government and non government actor, civil society, vigilant citizens and media. Removal of the shortcomings of the law is also to be ensured. Availability and utilization of fund is also a necessary criterion in this regard and last not least, without proper institutional arrangement, it is our realization that, the cry for access to justice for socially downtrodden people will be far away from reality.
The writer is a student of Law, University of Dhaka.
