Your Advocate
This week Your Advocate is Barrister Omar Khan Joy, Advocate, Supreme Court of Bangladesh. He is the head of the chambers of a renowned law firm, namely, 'Legal Counsel', which has expertise mainly in commercial law, corporate law, family law, employment and labor law, land law, banking law, constitutional law, criminal law, IPR and in conducting litigations before courts of different hierarchies. Our civil and criminal law experts from reputed law chambers will provide the legal summary advice.
Query
What are the provisions of getting a legal aid and where to go for? Does everyone get a grant of legal aid?
Md. Sharifullah
Rajendrapur,Dhaka
Response
I would like to thank you very much for your queries. Your queries are of very much importance as legal aid is indispensable for those who can not afford the expense of litigation. In Bangladesh, the concept of legal aid is not much popular. However, the government modernized the existing legal aid scheme of the country by enacting the Legal Aid Act 2000 which provides for decentralization of activities in national and district level. Accordingly, the Government formed a National Legal Aid Board by way of Gazette Notification in 2001 to control the whole legal aid scheme at national level. Besides, Legal Aid Committees at the District level have also been established.
According to the Legal Aid Act 2000, all applications for seeking legal aid must be submitted to the National Legal Aid Board or to the District Legal Aid Committee as the case may be. Where an application is rejected by the District Committee, the aggrieved person may prefer an appeal to the National Legal Aid Board within sixty days of the rejection.
As far as your second query is concerned, the Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs formulated guidelines as empowered by the Act of 2000. The guidelines enumerate categories of persons eligible to seek legal aid which includes: any freedom fighter who is totally or partly incapable of earning or whose annual income is below six thousand taka, person receiving old age honorarium, poor women holding VGF card, women or children who are either victim of trafficking or acid violence, any person who has been allocated land in model village, any poor widow or women deserted by her husband, physically or mentally handicapped person incapable of earning and having no mean of subsistence, any person unable to establish his right to defend himself in court due to financial crisis, anyone who has been detained without trial and unable to defend himself due to financial crisis, anyone considered by Jail authority or Court as poor or helpless, anyone considered by the legal aid board in pursuance of any financial crisis, socio-economic reason or disaster.
Besides, some of the Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) of our country provide legal assistance in the form of counseling to the aggrieved mostly in cases involving family matters. Sometimes they provide legal assistance in the form of representation in special cases.
I hope the aforesaid opinion shall help you to resolve your queries.
For detailed query contact: omar@legalcounselbd.com.
World day against child labour
12 June 2011 marks the adoption of the landmark International labour Organisation (ILO) Convention No 182, which addresses the need for action to tackle the worst forms of child labour. While celebrating progress made since the Convention's adoption in 1999, the World Day highlights continuing challenges, such as the millions of children involved in hazardous work.
The ILO has estimated that some 215 million children are trapped in child labour. Many of these children work long hours, often in dangerous conditions. Child labour is closely associated with poverty and denies children their right to education. Many poor families are unable to afford school fees or other school costs. The family may depend on the contribution that a working child makes to the household's income, and place more importance on work than on education. When a family has to make a choice between sending either a boy or girl to school, it is often the girl who loses out.
The theme of the World Day for 2011 is "Children in hazardous work". More than half of child labourers worldwide--an estimated 115 million--are involved in forms of employment that are likely to harm their health, safety or morals. This problem affects a wide variety of jobs and industries and is widespread in both developed and developing nations. The international community has identified hazardous work as among the worst forms of child labour it has targeted for eradication by 2016. The World Day is intended to focus global attention on this practice and call for urgent action to combat it.
Sources: International Labour Organization (ILO)
