The Lack of Legal Aid Accessed by The Poor Society in West Kalimantan Province Rini Setiawati 1 , Sri Ayu Septinawati 2 , Charlyna S. Purba 3 {rini090366@gmail.com 1 , septin2006@yahoo.co.id 2 , charlyna.purba@gmail.com 3 } Faculty of Law Universitas Panca Bhakti Pontianak, Indonesia 1,2,3 Abstract. Providing legal aid to the poor in West Kalimantan was one of the state's role manifestations in providing legal protection as ruled by 16th Indonesian Law of 2011 on Legal Aid. In fact, the authors found that most of the poor society in West Kalimantan faced the difficulty to access the legal aid. It was caused by the lack of verified legal aid providers in West Kalimantan. The aim of the study was finding the solution to maximize the legal aid providers within giving the legal aid to the poor society. Through unstructured legal method, the study found that there was a legal vacuum of the unruled mechanism which institutions that provide verification of legal aid institutions established by the Local Government. The implication of the study gave a recommendation in the form of legislation revision that legal aid regulations need further arrangements in the 16th Indonesian Law of 2011 on Legal Aid. Keywords: Legal Aid, Poor Society, Access. 1 Introduction Article 27 paragraph (1) The 1945 Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia (Sekretariat- Negara-RI, 2002) mentioned that all citizens shall be equal before the law and the government and shall be required to respect the law and the government, with no exceptions. Equality before the law can be realized and enjoyed by the community if there was an equal opportunity to get justice (Gerstenberg, 2012). Equality before the law might be accompanied by various facilities for the public to obtain justice too including legal aid right fulfillment (Sir & Brooke, 2017). There were many poor society which is entangled in legal cases and could not able to afford legal counsel services in accompanying his case became one of the establishment reasons in the form of legal aid regulation. Legal aid was a legal service provided by legal aid providers, free of charge to legal aid recipient. Legal aid recipient was a poor person or group. While, legal aid provider was a legal aid agency or civic organization that provide legal aid services based on The 16th Indonesian Law of 2011 on Legal Aid (The Republic of Indonesia, 2011). Legal aid provider role in providing legal assistance in the proceedings for the poor is very important (Iwan Wahyu Pujiarto, Syafrudin Kalo, Eka Putra, 2015). The reason was very sure because the poor society which entangled in legal cases had not understood their rights as defendants, it made them were treated unfairly or impaired their right. Meanwhile, firmly in The 1945 Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia stated that every citizen had the same right before the law and was entitled to be treated fairly (Sekretariat-Negara-RI, 2002). ICSTIAMI 2019, July 17-18, Jakarta, Indonesia Copyright © 2021 EAI DOI 10.4108/eai.17-7-2019.2303495