Members of Legal Aid Committees have been urged to increase the capacity of legal aid offices, and raise public awareness from grassroot and coordination among the members of the committee to ensure government legal aid.
They also advocated for the expansion of legal aid services to the upazila level.
They came up with these suggestions at the capacity coordination conference of the Legal Aid Committee on Saturday. The conference was a joint initiative of USAID’s Promoting Peace and Justice and the National Legal Aid Committee.
Golam Sarwar, secretary of the Law and Justice Division, said “The coordination meeting today was called in response to Law Minister Anisul Haque's request to strengthen the legal assistance program. The establishment of Alternative Dispute Resolution Centers in each district is ongoing. He promised to take action to raise the fees of panel lawyers.”
“The current administration has taken a number of steps to strengthen the legal aid program,” he added.
Stating that presidents of the Union and Upazila Legal Aid Committees are public representatives, he said, “Their active cooperation is needed to speed up the legal aid process. If the involvement of public representatives is increased, the legal aid program will be accelerated.”
Helen LaFave, Deputy Chief of Mission of US Embassy in Dhaka, Heather Goldsmith, Chief of the Party of Promoting Peace and Justice and senior officials of Department of Law and Justice and National Legal Aid Organization were present.
One union and upazila parishad member from selected 20 districts along with legal aid officers and presidents of district committees were also present at the conference.
Source: United News of Bangladesh