Despite the return of democracy to Bangladesh in 1991, significant problems remain. Violence against women, police beatings and other human rights violations are common, and widespread illiteracy, poverty and social stigma prevent many people from seeking or obtaining legal redress. How can non-governmental organisations (NGOs), lawyers and law professors use the law to address these problems? Is it possible to establish a more equitable and effective legal system under these conditions?
A review of the Ford Foundation’s Public Interest Law Initiative (PILI) in Bangladesh in the 1990s highlights innovations that could be applied successfully to other countries. PILI’s aims were to improve education for law students, increase legal services for disadvantaged populations and broaden the community of activists. To that end the Foundation supported existing legal services groups including the Madaripur Legal Aid Association (MLAA), created the Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (BLAST) and helped the country’s three major law schools start clinical legal education programmes.
Although the Foundation and its grantees have not been the only actors in the growth of legal advocacy in Bangladesh, the study outlines a number of their important contributions including:
- MLAA has adapted traditional community mediation to better address the needs of women. Eighty percent of cases are successfully resolved and MLAA are gradually integrating women into the committees of trained mediation workers and encouraging women to speak up.
- BLAST is the nation’s largest legal aid organisation. In combination with other groups it is conducting policy research and advocacy on proposals for a human rights commission and a national legal aid scheme.
- Clinical legal education has been introduced to Chittagong, Dhaka and Rajshahi universities following visits to programmes in neighbouring countries, exposing students to legal aid and NGO work.
- Some top law graduates are now opting for full-time or part-time work with legal service NGOs while internships with NGOs have encouraged pro bono work from others.
- Ford-sponsored meetings to arrange internships are helping break down barriers between law schools and NGOs, and connections are growing among NGO lawyers, mainstream practitioners, students and journalists.
It will take many years before the full effect of Ford-supported law work in Bangladesh becomes clear. Nevertheless it already provides several pointers for policy makers including:
- Placements with legal service groups offer law students opportunities to broaden their perspectives, integrate such services into their careers and join the community of legal activists.
- Launching and refining a clinical education programme is a laborious process and considerable up-front effort must first be devoted to materials preparation and teacher training.
- Engaging mainstream lawyers in legal services deepens the pool of attorneys available to help the poor, may generate professional support for law-oriented NGOs and strengthen their impact.
- The NGO-initiated mediation can prove preferable to the more gender and class-biased traditional mediation practices and to the delay-prone, high cost and complicated procedures often associated with courts.
