The Gazette 1972

Free Legal Advice Centres Address made to Society of Young Solicitors Seminar in Galway on Saturday, 25th March 1972, by John Glackin, Chairman, F.L.A.C.

to make a contribution towards the costs—this depends on his income after allowing for various deductions in respect of dependants, etc. (c) In England, the principle is that the court should positively see that Legal Aid is preferred where it may be needed—in Ireland, the Court has no such duty although some Judges do inform defendants of their right to apply for Legal aid. Criteria of the Widgery Committee The Widgery Committee set out the criteria other than financial to assess whether a person should be granted legl aid. These are: (i) If charge is a grave one in the sense that accused is in real practical jeopardy of losing his liberty or live- lihood or suffering serious damage to his reputation. (ii) If the charge raises a substantial question of law. (iii) If the accused is unable to follow the proceedings and state his own case either because of his inadequate knowledge of English or because of mental illness or other mental or physical disability. (iv) If the nature of the defence involves tracing and interviewing of witnesses or expert cross-examination of a prosecution witness. Even with these improvements on the old system, the English legal profession are not satisfied that the system is working correctly, particularly in the Magistrates' Courts where in 1969 only 3.5 per cent of defendants were granted legal aid. Late last year a Justice report, "The Unrepresented Defendant in Magistrates' Courts", suggested that a different system of legal aid might be more efficient in giving representation in those Courts. The report suggested a "Duty Solicitor" scheme where there are solicitors attached to the courts who will represent defendants who cannot afford legal representation otherwise—these "Duty Solicitors" would be paid out of public money. At least two local law societies in England are acti- vely considering the "Duty Solicitor" scheme and will probably implement it for a month's experimental period. CivH Legal Aid Civil Legal Aid—there is no statutory system in Ireland but in England there is a fairly elaborate scheme of Legal Aid and Advice. (a) Legal Advice Scheme—any person with income of less than £9.50 per week after allowing deductions for dependants, can obtain for 12£p up to hours of advice from a participating solicitor on any legal prob- lem. The solicitor can then claim £2 per \ hour of advice, up to a maximum of hours, which is paid out of the Supplementary Benefits Fund of the Depart- ment of Social Security. This scheme is administered by the Law Society. (b) Legal Aid Scheme—a person of limited means may have his lawyer's fees either paid in full or in part for bringing or defending almost any type of civil claim, but in practice about 85 per cent of legally-aided cases are for divorce or other matrimonial matters. Again there is dissatisfaction in England with this system for varied reasons. (i) The gap between legal advice and legal aid in a court case is too wide and is not plugged, e.g. there is no aid for non-litigious negotiations or for social welfare tribunal work. 152

F.L.A.C. was started in April 1969 by a group of law students. It opened with one centre in Mountjoy Square and other centres were later added. In the past year, three new centres were opened in Rialto, Ballymun and the Dun Laoire area. Each centre is staffed by a group of law students who attend each week on the night the centre is open. There is a panel of solicitors for each centre and a solicitor attends the centre each week. The panels are operated on a rota basis so that a solicitor may be called on anything from once in six weeks to once in twelve weeks. The solicitor deals with any prob- lems that are posed by visitors to the centre and which the student interviewer cannot answer himself. Some problems presented require further legal action possibly a court case and in such instances, the solicitor has the case referred back to his office. At the end of July 1971 the total number of cases dealt with by F.L.A.C. was 1,054—at the end of February 1972 the total number of cases was approximately 1,800. These figures speak for themselves. F.L.A.C. has established itself as an impor- tant social service in which the solicitors play a funda- mental and very essential role. However, more solicitors are now required for the centres in Ballymun and Dun Laoire and volunteers may give their names to me. There are similar centres in operation in Cork and Galway, staffed by law students from UCC and UCG respectively. But there are many other provincial areas where the need exists for a similar service. Obviously there will not be students to do the interviewing but it should be possible for solicitors in provincial towns to provide a free legal advice service for those who would not or could not go to a solicitor's office for financial reasons. This could be organised by the local Bar Asso- ciations in conjunction with existing social and com- munity service councils. The third matter I want to deal with is related to dis- cussion on solicitors' fees and possible future control by non-lawyers. If fees are further controlled and limited solicitors will be less able to deal with charitable cases and the question of a comprehensive legal aid scheme will become more immediate as its necessity becomes greater. We should therefore now begin to examine optional systems of legal aid and advice which could be introduced here and the way to start is by looking at systems in other countries. The English Legal Aid Scheme The English Legal Aid Scheme in criminal cases is basically the same as ours, due of course to the fact that our Act of 1962 was a copy of earlier English legislation. But English legislation governing criminal legal aid was revised in 1967 after the report of the Widgery Com- mittee in 1966. The main differences now between the English and Irish system, apart from the difference in the amount of monev allocated for legal aid, are : (a) In England, lawvers are paid fees that are broadly based on the work done in each individual case—a narrative bill is prepared showing the work done and the disbursements and this is scrutinised by the Area Committee of the Legal Aid system or by the Clerk of the Court. (b) In England, a person getting legal aid may have