Law minister Anisul Huq urged all of the district judges to take effective initiatives to make the alternative dispute resolution (ADR) system more popular, so that problems associated with the enormous backlog of cases, from all of the courts around the country, can be solved quickly.
The law minister said this at a program titled 'Conference on DLAC: Strengthening Government Legal Aid and Good Governance,' which was jointly organized by National Legal Aid Services Organization (NLASO) and UNDP Bangladesh in Dhaka on Tuesday.
The minister said: “The current government has enacted a respective law to ensure the disposal of the huge backlog of cases. As a result, District Legal Aid Services enables the option to dispose of cases through pre-case and post case mediation and alternative dispute resolution (ADR). Over the last few years, a total of 19,018 cases were disposed through the ADR mechanism in the District Legal Aid Offices, and we should emphasize more on implementing ADR in legal aid services."
Van Nguyen, deputy resident representative of UNDP, said: “UNDP has been providing ongoing support to the National Legal Aid Services Organization (NLASO) since 2014. The support has continued through ongoing justice development work until now. The organization is here to help poor and vulnerable citizens get access to justice. One of our key objectives has been to strengthen legal aid services and ADR mechanisms through improved partnerships with NLASO.”
UNDP in 2018 initiated district level interventions to strengthen the referral system through the Union Parishad Legal Aid Committee (ULAC) and District Legal Aid Committee (DLAC). Currently, UNDP is implementing this project in Naogaon, Panchagarh, and Cox’s Bazar.
Among other officials from NLASO, all of the District Judges who are also the chairmen of District Legal Aid Committees, were present at the conference.
