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Educating for Social Justice Lawyering and Community Legal Empowerment: Learnings from India and Bangladesh

Document Cited in Related
Published date01 January 2025
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1177/23220058241289261
AuthorAjay Pandey,Shireen Moti,Sharin Shajahan Naomi
Date01 January 2025
Educating for Social Justice
Lawyering and Community
Legal Empowerment: Learnings
from India and Bangladesh
Ajay Pandey1, Shireen Moti1 and Sharin Shajahan Naomi2
Abstract
The access to justice crisis is severe in India and Bangladesh. Both of these countries have enormous
unmet legal needs. To ensure access to justice, three components need to be fulfilled: The existence of
a legal institutional framework, awareness among citizens regarding this framework and its processes
and citizens’ effective access to them. The state is obligated to ensure that there is access to justice,
especially for the poor sections of society. Law schools have an important role to play in providing
solutions to this crisis. Clinical legal education (CLE) programmes in law schools, with their mission of
providing skill-based training to law students, and legal services to underserved communities are well
positioned to respond to the needs of access to justice. This article examines the challenges to social
justice lawyering and community empowerment in India and Bangladesh and compares the status of
CLE’s response to them in both countries. It recommends three solutions for ‘socially relevant legal
education’ and to resolve the access to justice crisis. First, the institutional support for CLE programmes
needs to be improved. Second, sustained sources of funding are imperative for the development of such
programmes. Third, the regulators of legal education should take serious measures to bridge the gap
between academia and practice in the legal profession.
Introduction
Human rights are widely considered to be inherent to the dignity of every human being.3 Despite
widespread acceptance of human rights norms by the states, their application remains elusive for many,
especially for those living in poverty.4 Poverty is closely associated with a denial of the right to rights.5
      
      6 This is particularly true for South Asia,
1 Jindal Global Law School, O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat, Haryana, India
2 Independent University of Bangladesh, Dhaka
3 Article 1, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948,   (Oct. 15, 2023, 10:00 AM), https://www.un.org/en/
about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights#:~:text=Article%201,in%20a%20spirit%20of%20brotherhood
4 Lena Hasle, Too Poor for Rights? Access to Justice for Poor Women in Bangladesh, 29  
 99 (2003).
5 Id.
6 Id. at 100.
Article
Asian Journal of Legal Education
12(1) 25–39, 2025
© 2024 The West Bengal National
University of Juridical Sciences
Article reuse guidelines:
in.sagepub.com/journals-permissions-india
DOI: 10.1177/23220058241289261
journals.sagepub.com/home/ale
Corresponding author:
Ajay Pandey, O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat, Haryana 131001, India.
E-mail: ajay.pandey@fulbrightmail.org

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