Legal Aid after the Issuance of the Law No. 16 of 2011

 

Tanggerang | badilag.net

According to the Law No. 16 of 2011, legal aid is organized by the Ministry of Law and Human Rights. However, this Law recognizes a transition period in which legal aid conducted in some institutions including the Supreme Court, the Indonesian Police, and the Attorney continues to run in 2012 in those institutions.

Agency for National Legal Development (BPHN) is finalizing some technical regulations on how to implement the legal aid in accordance with the Law No. 16 of 2011. BPHN had created a special team involving many parties.

The World Bank with its program of justice for the poor held three workshops at different regions, Yogyakarta, Makassar and Tanggerang. The main objective of those workshops was to understand what people who those lived in rural and remote areas needed. Those workshop also tried to find the best solution to meet their need to justice.

The discussion on the role of paralegal became very important on those workshops. Sonja Litz (Senior Counsel of the World Bank) hoped that there would be two paralegals in each village in Indonesia.

Vice Minister of the Ministry of Law and Human Rights, Denny Indrayana stated that  he would check the composition of paralegals in the Law No. 16 of 2011. In fact, he agreed with the role of paralegal in providing legal aid.

. Does “Prodeo” still belong to the Religious Court?

The Secretary of the Directorate General of the Religious Courts, Farid Ismail who represented Wahyu Widiana explained the progress made by the Religious Court regarding the implementation of legal aid.

According to him, the Religious Courts had succeeded in implementing legal aid. The target which exceeded was the real indication of the success.

Many participants of a workshop agreed with Farid Ismail that prodeo (waiving court fees) should be organized by the Religious Courts. It would enable people get the service easier instead of organized by the Ministry of Law and Human Rights.

Bambang Soetono, an analyst of the World Bank suggested BPHN learn from the experiences of the Religious Court in conducting legal aid. According to him, there were some crucial issues related to budget, mechanism, socialization, etc that must carefully be discussed in detail.
(Rahmat Arijaya)