Bangladesh University of

Professionals
Department of Law
Term Paper
On
Legal Deprivation of the Poor People: Bangladesh Perspective
Course Title: Functional English
Course Code: 1101
Submitted to
Respectable,
Asso. Prof. Md. Murshikul Alam
Adjunct Faculty
Department of Law
Submitted by
Md Abu Bakar
Roll no. 18421002
Batch:03

Submission date: 24.04.2018

Table of content:
1. Abstract

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2. Introduction

3. Lawlessness and poverty

4. Alignment of deprivation

5. Access to justice

6. The role of the judicial system

7. Legal Aid

8. Legal Aid and its paradoxes

9. ADR

10.PIL

11.Conclusion

Legal Deprivation of the Poor People: Bangladesh

Perspective

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Abstract: Low income person is more likely to be prosecuted and imprisoned. Poor people
loose in criminal justice not because they have ineffective lawyers but because they are
selectively targeted by police, prosecutors and law makers. Equal access to justice is correct
that depends on human rights commitments. It is a certification against prohibition and
imbalance looked by numerous people living in destitution. In developing nations like us the
obstructions of access to justice are most substantial and these boundaries have the greatest
effect on the poorest people. The study clarifies that the boundaries can be identified with
reasons.

Introduction: National Survey Bureau has published a report where it shows only 17.5
percent of people go to the judiciary for justice and 23.5 percent of people go for justice to none. 1
As per the World Bank report of 2010, 40 percent of total population of Bangladesh lives
beneath the poverty line. So an extensive number of people, at last those are poor, in a basically
in risk to get the equity. Article 27 of the Bangladesh Constitution, 1972 gives that all subjects
are equivalent under the watchful eye of law and qualified for have square with security of law.
But in actuality, with the experience of its 46 years travel, because of money related imperatives
and lacking framework and social imbalance, all are not similarly advantaged to get the
advantages of law. Truth is told the equity has gone far from the entrance of destitute people.
Access to equity for the needy people isn't charity rather it's a human rights and also major
rights.

Critically, from a human rights perspective, poverty is not only associated with denial of rights –
but also the denial of the right to rights, as promoted and protected through an effective legal
system. Legal systems around the world discriminate against people who cannot afford legal
representation, are illiterate and lack the power to influence legislative processes. 2 Strategies for
improving poor people’s access to justice attempt to decrease the gap between the concept of
universal human rights, and poor people’s enjoyment of these rights through experience. 3
Typically, these strategies are aimed at making the legal system more responsive to poor
people’s needs by addressing hurdles that hinder their access to court.
1
Daily Prothomalo, 9 june ,2012
2
M. Anderson, ‘Access to justice and legal process: Making legal institutions responsive to poor people in LDCs’,
IDS Working Paper 178 at http://www.ids.ac.uk/ ids/bookshop/wp/wp178.pdf
3
C.A. Odinkalu, Informal responses to access to human rights, International Council on Human Rights Policy, at
http://www.ichrp.org/ac/excerpts/ 157.doc

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In spite of the all sacred guarantee with respect to the equivalent assurance of law, the legislature
of Bangladesh has ventured out the entrance to equity for the destitute individuals after the 30
years of its autonomous. In 2001, the parliament has ordered Legal Aid Service Act to encourage
the needy individuals to get the legitimate cure from the legal. In any case, all through the entire
Act, the artist intention is to give lawful guide as philanthropy; rather than access to equity for
the destitute individuals as a common right.

Lawlessness and poverty:

It is now common ground among development theorists that unchecked abuses of political power
can undermine growth.4 The rule of law, it is argued, not only ensures life and personal security,
it also provides a stable framework of rights and obligations which can help to reduce political
risk to investors and to cut down transaction costs. A legal system that protects property rights
and enforces contractual obligations also fosters the development of markets in land, labor, and
capital, thereby enhancing economic efficiency. The 1997 World Development Report (World
Bank 1997: 41) concluded that markets cannot exist without effective property rights, and that
effective property rights depend upon fulfilling three conditions:

a) ‘Protection from theft, violence, and other acts of predation’;

b) ‘Protection from arbitrary government actions – ranging from unpredictable, ad hoc
regulations and taxes to outright corruption – that disrupt business activity’;
c) ‘A reasonably fair and predictable judiciary’.
The Report describes the absence of these conditions as “the lawlessness syndrome” and
highlights the negative effects that the syndrome has for business. Lawlessness raises costs,
discourages risk-taking, and depresses the velocity of economic transactions.
While the importance of legal institutions to business and investment has received considerable
attention in the literature, there has been little systematic exploration of the role that the rule of
law plays in ameliorating poverty.5 They are more likely to be ignored or mistreated by
bureaucrats, are most vulnerable to being left destitute by petty corruption, and are least likely to
4
World Bank (1997: chaps 1 and 6).
5
Hence in a survey of the experience of judicial reform, we are told that that main purpose of an effective
judiciary is to make legal systems more “market friendly” (Messick 1999: 118). An exception to the trend is the
publication Governance: The World Bank’s Experience which notes that the legal system also affects the lives of the
poor, and has a role to play in poverty alleviation through preventing discrimination, protecting the socially
weak and distributing opportunities in society (World Bank 1994).

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have the skills and resources necessary to “work” the state machinery. These factors are not just
symptoms of poverty: they are part of its cause and a most fundamental aspect of its
manifestation. While poverty has traditionally been regarded as a phenomenon best understood
in terms of income and productivity, it has more recently been recognized that poverty is a multi-
dimensional problem, extending beyond low income to include physical vulnerability and
powerlessness within existing political and social structures (Bernstein 1992). This view is
corroborated by anthropological studies of impoverished communities that highlight the
prominence of lawlessness in the daily experience of poverty. At the same time, the growing
number of neo-institutional analyses suggests that political and legal rules do have a direct
impact upon social practices and economic outcomes. In short, institutions matter for poverty.

Alignment of deprivation: Typically people are denied of their lawful rights for their lack
of education and ignorance. Also, those are that people normally poor and couldn't figure out
how to meet their every day necessaries not to mention known to them about their lawful rights.
In this way, people who are poor are basically subjected to casualty of lawful hardship. In the
matter of human rights or major rights they don't realize what their settled rights are and don't
know how to look for. Entirely are no such arrangements with respect to hardship since one
doesn't comprehend what his or her rights is then he or she will be casualty of each and every
violations or denies of rights. As the law constituted with common law and criminal law the
oblivious is clearly casualty of the two laws as indicated by the people certainties.

Legal expenses: No big surprise in Bangladesh that the legitimate costs by one means or another
comparable proportionate to than that of few created nations. People are sick of paying cash to
cash either to the legal advisor or to the legal authority contribution. Such a significant number
of people upon this reality in their mind attempt to keep away from the legal procedures.

Language ambiguity: No offense to state that the lawful dialect is excessively obscure, making
it impossible to comprehend for everyday citizens and it makes an undesirable dread and make
them far from the lawful procedures. This situation is a typical to the poorer ones.

Red-Tap custom: The multifaceted nature of administration is one of the fearsome motivations
to maintain a strategic distance from legal system by destitute people. Since they reliant on their

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everyday schedule works. They can't bear to stay hours to hours everyday for the equity. Along
these lines it makes them far from the legal technique and subjected to denied.

In spite of few explanations behind maintaining a strategic distance from Law there are to be
sure a few answers for the poorer people. Some of these are given below.

Access to justice: Even where the courts are constitutionally protected, the judiciary
independent, and the laws drafted in fairness to the poor, the legal system will be of little benefit
to the poor unless they are able to use the legal levers that it makes available. While “access to
justice” has attracted considerable support, and has featured in recent legal reforms in the UK
and elsewhere, it has not featured prominently in the good governance agenda in developing
countries. Repeated studies of access to justice have shown that two factors predominate in
determining whether people are able to use available legal remedies. The first, and by far the
most important, is access to financial resources. Hiring lawyers and using legal institutions can
be very costly in them, but also entail opportunity costs, which for the poor usually mean time
away from income-generating activities. The second factor usually identified is institutional skill
– the ability to understand and use the system.

The role of judicial system: There is a temptation, particularly in common law societies, to
equate the judiciary with the entire legal system, and to look to judges to serve as the primary
guardians of probity and fairness. Yet the judiciary is but a part of the entire legal system, and
both the scope of its powers and its political role vary considerably from jurisdiction to
jurisdiction. In some circumstances judges are seen essentially as lowlevel bureaucrats exercising
minor administrative powers. In other political systems judges are entrusted with the task of
resolving some of society’s most profound political and moral dilemmas, including for example
the legality of the death penalty, whether an election is to be annulled, and how health care
should be rationed in circumstances of scarcity. Apart from the important differences between
civil law and common law conceptions of the judicial role, differences arise from the political
context in which judges are embedded. For these reasons, there can be no one-size-fits-all
analysis of the role of judges in ameliorating poverty.

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Legal Aid: The possibility of legal guide speaks to the very soul of correspondence and value
cherished in the cutting edge ideas of established law, as expressed in the Constitution of the
Peoples' Republic of Bangladesh. The principles of equivalent treatment of law and reasonable
legal trial have discovered articulation as one of' the establishments of the cutting edge lawful
comprehension of central human rights, both national and universal field. The idea of legitimate
guide is hence neither a beneficent inclination nor an optimistic vision of an idealistic wander. It
is somewhat a crucial and basic piece of the standards of Rule of Law and organization of equity.
The thought of Legal Aid saw in a wide non specific sense, is an assemblage of exercises, which
can be embraced by legal counselors or non-attorneys, including NGOs and other common
society, as might be fitting as indicated by law, custom and limit.
The arrangement identifying with legitimate guide under Bangladesh law was first present in the
Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 (Order XXXIII, Rule 1) in connection to the beggar suit. A man is
a poor person when he isn't had of adequate intends to empower him to pay the expense endorsed
by law for the plaint in a suit; or, where no such charge is recommended, when he isn't qualified
for property worth one hundred taka other than his fundamental wearing clothing and the topic of
the suit. There are additionally arrangements identifying with the privilege to lawful guard have
been made in the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898. As indicated by segment 340 (1) any
individual blamed for an offense under the steady gaze of a criminal court, or against whom
procedures are founded under this code in any such court, may of right be safeguarded by a
pleader. More recently, the Legal Remembrance’s Manual, 1969 provides that an indigent person
accused of an offence punishable with death sentence is to be provided with the assistance of’ a
lawyer at the expense of the state.6

The above provisions may be seen as embedded in a ‘negative right’7  to legal aid contained in
the Constitution of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh. Article 33(1) of the Constitution
provides that no arrested person shall be detained in custody without being informed of the
grounds for such arrest, nor shall he be denied the right to consult and be defended by a legal
practitioner of his choice.

Government operated legal aid system in Bangladesh was first introduced through a national
legal aid fund in 1994, which was later revived through formation of National and District
Committees in 1997.  Finally, the current legal aid service under a National Legal Aid Services
6
Judgment (pars-6) in State vs. Puma Chandra Mondal, 1970, 22 DLR; see also, Abdul Gani’s case (16 D.L.R. 388).
7
 M. Bhatra, Protection of Human Rights in Criminal Justice Administration (1989) at 63.

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Organization (NLASO) was established by enacting the Legal Aid Services Act, 2000 (as
amended, hereinafter LASA 2000).

Legal Aid and its paradoxes: There without a doubt exists an administration worked
lawful guide framework in Bangladesh, however the framework's help instrument is deficient.
The possibility of legitimate guide speaks to the very soul of correspondence and value revered
in the advanced ideas of established law, as expressed in the Constitution of the Peoples'
Republic of Bangladesh. The tenets of equivalent treatment of law and reasonable legal trial have
discovered articulation as one of the establishments of the cutting edge legitimate comprehension
of basic human rights, both national and universal field. The idea of lawful guide is therefore
neither an altruistic inclination nor an optimistic vision of an idealistic wander. It is fairly a
crucial and fundamental piece of the standards of Rule of Law and organization of equity.

All applications for getting legitimate guide must be submitted to the National Board of Legal
Aid or in suitable cases to the District Legal Aid Committee. On the off chance that an
application is dismissed by the District Committee and the individual feels bothered by that
choice, at that point the candidate may lean toward an interest to the National Legal Aid Board
inside 60 days of the declaration of the choice of the District Committee. Sec, 16 accommodates
how to apply for legitimate Aid. According to this area separated from the aforementioned
arrangements the lawful Aid Rules, 2000 accommodates the accompanying arrangements' for
how to influence an application for Legal to help.

ADR: Alternative Dispute Resolution is the mediatory arrangement of some specific question
that make the court far from its suit procedure. It has been fundamentally started for the
reservation of connections and makes an appropriate arrangement without having any
contentions. For the poor it causes them to far from court strategy and make an exchange in
regards to rights and request what the grievance needs or needs without devouring time after all
it is an in-formal procedures.

PIL: Public Interest Litigation, for the advancement of mass people groups concern it makes
some specific compulsory rights by the court. As it covers for mass the poorer one additionally
incorporate into the class. As it seems to be "across the board" framework spares cash for such a
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significant number of people. Furthermore, helps genuinely and specifically or by implication to
the destitute people or less favored people.

Conclusion: To finish up, I discovered it very disheartening to do this investigation and found
that occasionally living in destitution line may believe that lawful rights or equity can be gotten
just by the affluent people. This is a concerning message and ought to urge every one of us to
proceed with our work in help of the part of Law. What's more, it ought to be accessible for all
ladies and men, and everybody ought to have the capacity to appreciate the advantages of the
part of Law similarly without separation or hardship.

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