Free Legal Advice or Legal Aid in Bangladesh:
Legal Aid means free Legal Services or Legal Advice or representation that is provided by an organization at no cost to people who cannot afford to pay for the Legal Services. The concept Legal Aid denotes a wide meaning and includes counseling, payment of Lawyers fees and other incidental cost for expenses of the litigation.
Legal Aid in Bangladesh
In Bangladesh most of the people are improvised and they cannot access themselves to justice to protect their legal rights. To address this problem Legal Aid services are provided by the Government and different NGOs.
To provide Legal Aid to the needy people Government enacted the Legal Aid Services Act, 2000. This law provides for giving financial support to poor people to institute or defend cases in courts. Legal Aid Committees headed by the respective District Judges have been constituted with panel lawyers in each district. A Statutory body called National Legal Aid Organization has been established and there is a National Legal Aid Board consisting of 19 members.
Government also introduced National Helpline for Government Legal Aid Services. A call center has been set up at the National Legal Aid Services Organization’s central office with this short code 16430 number. This is a toll free (cost free) number.
To avail Government Legal Aid services please call to the Call Center at 16430 for details information or visit National Legal Aid Organization Website for Contact details.
The Legal Aid support of NGOs are worth mentioning. A number of NGOs are providing Legal Aid services to the poor people besides the Government.
The Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (BLAST) is one of the biggest NGO and providing Legal Aid and mediation services throughout the country. Ain o Shalish Kendro (ASK) is another biggest NGO in Bangladesh and they also provide Legal Aid services and promote Human Rights. Besides that some other NGOs and/or Lawyers, Law Firms are also provides Free Legal Advice and/or Legal Aid services to the poor people.
In Roy & Associates, we also provide free Legal Advice and we also represent the peoples who cannot afford our professional fees to Help them to get Access to Justice.
