Bangladesh is currently on track to meet a number of the Millennium Development Goals. Despite impressive achievements in a variety of fields, Bangladesh suffers from weak governance, poverty and limited government capacity to deliver basic services. For example, access to justice, respect for the rule of law and knowledge of human rights are generally acknowledged as inadequate. In order to meet
the 2006-2010 UNDAF outcome of progressively fulfilling the human rights of women, children and the vulnerable, the Government of Bangladesh continues to require considerable support to strengthen the foundations of democratic governance. In February 2009, under the auspices of the Human Rights Council, Bangladesh was subject to the first Universal Periodic Review of its human rights records (UPR0. The UPR highlighted a number of critical human rights violations in Bangladesh including: extra judicial killings by law enforcing agencies, custodial death and torture with impunity, discrimination against Indigenous peoples in land and access to justice, discrimination against religious minorities, child labour and marriage and disregard for prisoners’ rights. The principle mechanism for the protection of human rights in Bangladesh at present – the judicial system – has many challenges. Namely the formal justice system in Bangladesh lacks capacity, some of its procedures are complex, some of the laws under which it operates are outdated and at present there are too few incentives to resolve cases speedily. Many justice sector institutions lack good strategic plans which are linked to a defined vision for the future of their organization and the sector as a whole. This can hamper business planning, target setting and budgeting which can in turn prevent institutions from implementing the kind of changes which are needed to bring about improvements in justice delivery. Furthermore, the current structure of the system does not encourage coordination and cooperation between justice sector institutions, even though they rely heavily on each other to carry out their various functions. These factors combine to cause a slow rate of disposal which has in turn led to a large backlog of cases. This makes justice less accessible and less affordable than it should be, reducing citizens’ confidence in the system’s ability to deliver an acceptable level of service. Vulnerable groups, including women and children, ethnic minorities, the poor, and people with disabilities face particular difficulty in accessing timely and affordable justice.
