Judicial Reform in Bangladesh: What to Achieve and How to Achieve

Abstract

<p>Bangladesh is a fortunate country. Despite having to achieve its birth as a nation through violent conflict, resulting in huge loss of human lives and property, it inherited a fairly stable and vibrant judicial system and a set of ready-to-use laws. It was not until much later that cracks began to appear in the delivery of justice as the courts were unable to dispose of cases within reasonable time-frames. After its return to democracy, the economy took an upward trajectory which continues till now, making the courts increasingly burdened to the point that they are starting to lose their selling-point as the primary guardians of justice.</p> <p>This paper about judicial reform in Bangladesh is, nevertheless, not about why and how we can make courts faster and more efficient. Rather, it questions this very approach towards judicial reform that has been the obsession of policy-makers and their interventions, both homegrown and from abroad. This paper argues for a move away from the focus on delay-reduction and efficiency through judicial reform to looking at judicial reform taking justice as a key deliverable of development.</p> <p>This author draws on his experience as a lawyer practicing in the courts of Bangladesh, but more importantly the invaluable experience of working with a number of donor-funded judicial and legal reform projects. The paper asks and aims to answer two different but closely interlinked questions &ndash; what to achieve through judicial reform and how to achieve it.</p>

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