Bangla govt to set up 460 rural courts

The Bangladesh government proposes to set up village courts in all 460 sub-districts of the country.

These grameen courts would ensure speedy justice to the rural people and make it available at a much lesser expense than now. The courts, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed said, would function primarily as pre-trial courts, settling rural disputes through negotiations.

Details about the courts will be finalised shortly, after discussions with leading lawyers, judges, prominent citizens, intellectuals and leaders of political parties, she added.

Hasina's decision was prompted by the huge backlog of cases. Seventysix thousand cases are pending in the Bangladesh supreme court -- and, at least a million more cases remain to be settled in the lower courts.

A nine-member committee has already been constituted to set up the courts. Retired magistrates, school headmasters, clerics of mosques as well as others who command respect will be appointed court officials.

'''The grameen courts are a step in the right direction," says lawyer Abu Ahmed, ''They will curb the arbitrary powers of village chiefs and Islamic clerics to issue fatwas (religious edicts)."

The six-month-old Awami League government had recently set up a 'law commission' to overhaul the judicial system. It has also embarked on the process of separating the judiciary from the executive.

UNI