A3. Case Study 1: Bangladesh Access to Justice Strategies</h1>

The Village Court

Bangladesh has developed and made significant strides towards people-centred access to justice strategies over the past two decades. These strategies are aimed at addressing legal exclusion, poverty and systemic barriers. They combine state-led reforms, community-based legal aid services, and collaborations with civil society and development partners.

In Bangladesh, over 70 per cent of the population lives in villages, often far from formal courts. Most people face justice problems related to land, family disputes, theft, debt and violence and the formal justice system is considered to be costly, distant and slow.

One of the people-centred strategies in the rural areas of Bangladesh are the Village Court.

Strengthening the Village Court for grassroots access to justice in Bangladesh

Village Courts are a local justice delivery mechanism aimed at strengthening local authorities and institutions and making them more responsive to local needs. They function as a bridge between informal and formal justice institutions and provide a level of affordable, quick and accessible justice for all. ³⁰

The specific objectives of the project are:

1. to make local authorities more responsive to local justice needs and offer appropriate legal services in the form of well-functioning Village Courts
2. to empower local people, especially women, the poor and vulnerable groups, to seek remedies for injustices and to resolve their disputes at the local level in an expeditious, transparent and affordable manner.

The Village Court Act 2006 (amended 2013) introduced the Village Court, which integrates ADR in dealing with disputes in rural areas. To address this gap, Bangladesh revived and scaled up the Village Court system, supported by the Government of Bangladesh and development partners through a project named ‘Activating Village Court in Bangladesh (AVCB)’. Under this project, The Local Government Division of the Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Co-operatives takes the lead in the implementation, focusing on awareness creation on dispute resolutions services for rural people, particularly people living in poverty and the vulnerable at the community level.

The Village Court has been implemented in phases and following successful implementation of a Pilot phase (2009–2015), the AVCB III Project has been scaled up to 27 districts covering 8 administrative divisions of Bangladesh.

The structure of the Village Court is fairly simple. It handles criminal and civil cases of up to 75,000 Bangladesh taka (approximately US$800) in value. Each court is chaired by an elected Union Parishad chairperson and includes four members – two nominated from each of the parties in dispute. At least one nominee from each side must be a member of the Union Parishad.

The decisions of the court are legally enforceable and can be appealed in higher forums.

The courts are highly accessible to all parties by way of proximity to the community, use of local language, no formal fees and legal representation not being needed.

Key achievements

A study conducted on performance and effectiveness of Village Courts in Bangladesh confirmed that the Union Parishad (UP) plays a vital role in the economic and socio-cultural life of rural people. As the chair and members of the UP are elected by local people, they have greater accountability to the people.

Some of the key achievements of the project are as follows.

• The enactment of the Village Court Rules in February 2016.
• The publication of the Village Court Training Manual and Flipchart, revised by the project and endorsed by the National Institute of Local Government, which allows for entrenchment of the courts within the local authorities.
• Twenty-seven (27) district training pools provide capacity-building training to service providers, including chairs, panel chairs, members and secretaries, which is important for standardisation of practice across the courts.
• District judicial officers are now officially authorised to participate in Village Court training and have become part of the district training pools, with necessary guidance from the Bangladesh Supreme Court.
• Twenty-seven (27) districts and 128 Upazilas (Village Court Management Committees) have been created and are functioning.

Some recommendations on enhancing effectiveness of Village Courts

The study on the performance and effectiveness of the Village Court³¹ made the following recommendations, which could be adopted by other jurisdictions with similar initiatives or who wish to introduce them.

1. Enhancement of both pecuniary and geographic jurisdiction is necessary for greater impact, as Village Courts can also deal with higher-value matters. This would further enhance swifter justice for such matters.
2. Support is required from the police and other law enforcement authorities in criminal matters.
3. There is the need to make mandatory the requirement for the Village Court to deal with all cases within its jurisdiction before lodging cases at police stations.
4. Continuous training and capacity building for the UP chair, members and officials should be prioritised, especially on the fundamentals of a trial process.
5. More publicity is needed through government and private mass media campaigns about Village Courts to improve public awareness.
6. The secretarial function needs to be supported by more staff for greater efficiency.
7. There is a need for legal intervention to support enforcement, particularly as regards contempt of court situations.

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Footnotes

_{30 Islam, MJ et al. (2024), ‘Promoting access to justice in Bangladesh: Towards a hybrid justice model’, International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice, Vol. 77, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1756061624000077; UNDP (2019), Activating Village Courts in Bangladesh, https://www.villagecourts.org/about.  |  [back]}

_{31 Innovations for Poverty Action (2021), Activating Village Courts in Bangladesh: Final Evaluation Report, UNDP Bangladesh. https://erc.undp.org/evaluation/documents/download/19729.  |  [back]}