Law Letter
Understanding law through
learning by doing
The Empowerment through Law of the Common People [ELCOP] organised Human Rights Summer School at PROSHIKA HRDC, Koitta, Manikgonj from 11-23 December 2012 and it was the 13th session since its journey in 2000. This year the HRSS has been conducted on the theme “Human Rights and Critically Disadvantage People”. I was one of the participants and it was my great opportunity to accomplish myself with the training provided by the HRSS. HRSS is not a place for learning only but also it is an extensive and peculiar training initiative other than all trainings oriented through the lecture, interaction, field work, group discussion, presentation methodology.
The arrangement of the availability of the eminent jurists and scholars as speaker and instructor was a great opportunity for the young learners which opened avenue not only to learn from them; it also facilitated to share our views on issues, findings and put forward queries which helps us to meet our respective thrust in various issues on law and human rights. The pro-active learning by doing methodology helps the participants to experience a different mean and way of learning left behind the traditional learning methodology as it was a new orientation for them.
To conform to the declared theme of the training, HRSS tried to make orientation about the critically disadvantaged community of the society who have been pushed to a situation of mere survival with their dignity being compromised at every instance of their existence. For the better understanding of their plight the program was designed to visit at field level to explore and relate the theoretical lesson to the present reality. It was horrific for us to come across how the rights of marginalised people are being violated and exploited by society's power structural mechanism. There is lack of awareness on own rights as well among individual concern.
In terms of ensuring the justice for this disadvantaged group it is the duty of the state actors to create an atmosphere where the mass people will have a smooth access to justice without being obstructed by any difficulties. However the experience shows us that the cry for access to justice for socially downtrodden people is far away form the reality as they can not afford to pay the lawyer to realise their rights which ultimately itself contribute to the violation of human rights. The idea of Legal Aid service is totally peculiar to them, the reason, we found, there that they have no access to the right to information. Moreover the reality is that the mechanism manipulated their mindset in such a way that they are unwilling to know their own rights and unfortunately accustomed to compromise with their fortune although being deprived and marginalised.
The realization of us is that justice can not be ensured in root level without proper institutional arrangement .That's why it is the reason, we experienced, that the people in root level are compelled to put their reliance on their traditional justice system yet rather than the formal justice system of the country and thus they frequently denied the true justice.
The HRSS was not only the place of understanding the law only, it was a place where different legal mind gathered together and learned how to reach in a conclusion with consensus by mass discussion. HRSS also teaches us how to realise the plight of the poor and disadvantaged people, to work for pro- poor and the motto lawyering with the poor is lawyering for justice which every participant now bear in their mind is the ultimate outcome of this lesson.
Now we understand that to be a lawyer we have to go to the depth and root of the law for understanding the norms of the law. The black letter of the law in the book must be applied in the field and we have to prepare ourselves to challenge the status quo of the society. We people are the catalyst to change the society, the sentinels of human rights, and the fighter against tyranny and if we can then only the perception of Rebellious Lawyer will come in true.
Akramul Islam
Student of Law, University of Dhaka.
