A social justice lawyer in Bangladesh : the pioneering work of Salma Sobhan

This thesis reveals how Salma Sobhan (1937-2003), a lawyer and legal academic created new and important initiatives to provide access to justice to the disadvantaged, particularly poor women, in post-independence Bangladesh. During Sobhan’s career as a legal academic (at Dhaka University) and social justice lawyer (mainly with Ain a Salish Kendra (ASK), a leading human rights NGO in Bangladesh), she promoted women’s causes in novel ways. These efforts distinguished Sobhan from many other legal academics and lawyers in Bangladesh, making her a pioneering social justice lawyer. Examining the unique features of her intellectual work and modes of social justice lawyering, this thesis shows how Sobhan responded to various legal, economic and social problems to promote access to justice for poor women. It identifies her particular brand of feminism and explores whether Sobhan’s feminist beliefs aligned with her actions. This thesis also explores how Sobhan became the first woman legal academic in Bangladesh. It investigates what role Sobhan’s gender played in the selection of her academic career and approach to lawyering. This thesis further examines how her work is recognised in the Bangladeshi legal community and identifies her primary legacies in Bangladesh. It contextualises Sobhan’s contributions to law and justice in Bangladesh. This study also reveals how Sobhan contributed to broaden access to justice through informal systems, clients’ empowerment, social reform, legal literacy, public interest litigation, scholarly work, and the various other methods she devised and advanced through the organisations she created or was affiliated with. To provide a better understanding of what motivated and influenced her work, this thesis analyses Sobhan’s contributions in the light of her personal circumstances, as well as national and international developments that influenced them. Presenting the strengths and limitations of Sobhan’s work, this thesis, the first PhD project to concentrate on a lawyer in Bangladesh, provides a deeper and richer analysis of social justice lawyering in Bangladesh, with a particular emphasis on women’s rights. It aims to provoke new ways of thinking about the protection of women’s rights in the context of an impoverished and patriarchal society