Can you afford justice?

Justice tends to be expensive gradually. Plagued by the accusation of expensive litigation system prohibits a significant number of population from access to justice. The state of affordability became worse for the middle-income people as they are not even eligible for legal aid services. This is how a substantial gap between the concept of access to justice and ability to access to justice seems almost constant in Bangladesh as well as around the world. High and unpredictable lawyers’ fees, courts’ fees, discovery, length of trials, production of evidence and overall the complexities of laws escalating the litigation expenses. Dragging to the court-room and investing money, energy and time for years, cost rules are applied to console the winning party as expenses incurred by the other. However, the litigation costs are more extensive than the cost rules. This paper will examine how the cost rules are applying to indemnify the litigants in Bangladesh. Why the current diverse and multiple litigation Cost Rules required to be integrated into a comprehensive, coherent and realistically applicable single rules (Integrated Cost Rules) to maximise the access to justice? The paper will then consider how the litigation cost could be reduced through technology in the justice sector? It will also consider how a guiding principle on lawyers’ fees could control the inequality among clients, how the controlled and well-managed discovery could shorten the trials stage. And finally, this paper will also consider how the legal aid program can be improved to access to courts.