Can’t afford a court case? Do not worry. In Bangladesh we have a good number of organisations that provide pro bono legal services for those who cannot afford to institute or defend a case in the court. National Legal Aid Services Organisation is one such organisation.
Since majority people of Bangladesh are impoverished, they cannot avail legal aid to protect and vindi-cate their legal rights and lawful causes. To address this problem legal aid services have been activated under the Legal Aid Act, 2000. The law provides for giving legal support to poor people to institute or defend cases in courts.
Legal aid offices have been set up in 64 districts to make the legal aid services more effective, expedi-tious and service-oriented.
A district legal aid officer, besides providing legal aid services to the poor and helpless litigants, pro-vides people with legal advices. Currently, disposal of cases, forwarded by the Court or Tribunal, through district legal aid officer, is being considered by the government.
Legal aid committees headed by the respective district judges have also been constituted with govern-ment officers, lawyers, voluntary organisations in each district. A statutory body called National Legal Aid Organisation has been established and there is a National Board of Director consisting of 19 mem-bers.
The members represent ministers of Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs as chairman, members of parliament, attorney-general of Bangladesh, government officials as well as representa-tives from civil societies.
The National Legal Aid Committee is presently looking into the jail appeal matter and as a result, many poor convicts are getting benefits of the law. Under the Legal Aid Programme, private lawyers are also being engaged in this process and are conducting the jail appeals in courts. These programmes have been taken to give legal aid to the poor, distressed and helpless people access to justice.
In order to provide primary information on legal aid, the National Legal Aid Services Organisation initi-ated a hotline service with three mobile numbers (01761222222-4) at its head office. Under the ser-vice, anyone can get necessary information about legal aid service and its procedure through a phone call from any part of the country.
Primary legal advice is also given to the callers in addition to the information.
