Shalish and the Role of Brac's Federation: Improving the Poor's Access to Justice

Abstract

System of informal justice is a reality in all countries of the world - especially in developing countries. In Bangladesh as there is no formal administrative justice system at the village level, shalsih (informal justice system) plays vital role in providing justice to the people - especially to the poor. Village elite is treated as the judge or justice provider to the people. The main problem is that they over exercise and misuse their power to do this. Almost in all cases they provide biased justice. Therefore, BRAC as a National NGO strives to motivate poor to organize themselves through forming Federation to protest in one sense and make sure the equal justice to all the villagers in other sense. The findings show that Federation is getting lot of successes towards achieving their goal although they face lot of challenges in their way now and then and in future as well.