Access to Justice through Village Court for Rural Poor: The Case of Bangladesh

Abstract

Ensuring justice for all is a long cherished dream yet hangs on hope in the most developing countries like Bangladesh. Majority of the people are living at villages in Bangladesh. They are not in great touch with formal justice system because of their poor economic and social condition. The objective of the introducing of the Village Courts in Bangladesh was to ensure justice locally without having undue deferrals and inflated costs of the formal court processes. At present, village court is the only legal institution which exists to the doorstep of the rural poor people for the privilege of justice. This study focuses on recognizing the problems and prospects of Village Court in Bangladesh and provides a comprehensive way out to strengthen Village Court. Numerous problems severely circumscribed the Village Court system from realism such as lack of proper training and manpower, corruption, biasness, interruption of local politicians etc. This study has been prepared with the help of secondary data. Besides this, different academic views have been combined for a comprehensive reform approach that will be provided remedies of the current problems of Village Court.