Both lower and upper judiciary in Bangladesh are overstrained with more than 2.5 million civil and criminal cases demanding effective operation of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) to reduce the pressure on all tiers of the courts. Key problems like cost, complexity and delay of adversarial litigation procedure can effectively be reduced by mere introduction of arbitration, mediation, negotiation, conciliation and other forms of ADR in our laws and court systems.

In addition, mind set up and culture of litigation should be changed to bring an effective solution for easy access to justice for dispute affected poor and marginal people. Speakers at a seminar on ADR in Bangladesh jointly organised by Dhaka International University (DIU) and Bangladesh International Arbitration Centre (BIAC) on September 04, 2014 emphasised the need for wide implementation of ADR mechanisms to decrease the backlog of cases of our country.

Dr. Taufiq Ali, Chief Executive of BIAC presented the keynote paper at the seminar. Barrister Jennifer Ashraf and Advocate Khalid Yhayea were the

discussants in the program while the seminar was emceed by RaisuL Islam Sourav, senior lecturer and coordinator of the department of law of DIU.

The spokesmen mentioned the loopholes of the existing provisions of ADR in our legal system, specially the provision of the Artha Rin Adalat Ain and the Civil Procedure Code to go to the court for ADR. According to their views apart from our court system lawyers are not less liable for the delay in civil litigation like land related matters.

They also criticised its non practices and gave some recommendations to change the scenario of litigation. They told that arbitration and mediation are easier process in comparison with formal court proceedings and it is much time effective also. They said it could be a new door for the young lawyers to boost up their careers. Further, they urged to introduce the ADR course into our legal studies.

Among others chairpersons of different departments along with faculty members of law department and around 200 students of the department of law were present.

THE WRITER IS A SENIOR LECTURER OF LAW, DHAKA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY

(DIU).