KATHMANDU, DECEMBER 28
Lawyers and organisations involved in providing legal aid to case parties have said that the draft bill aimed at amending the existing legal aid laws needs to incorporate comprehensive provisions with a rights-based approach.
Speaking at an interaction organised by People Forum for Human Rights here today, Coordinator of National Network of Pro Bono Lawyers Shom Prasad Luitel said the draft bill lacked comprehensive definition of legal aid.
"The draft bill ought to be revised to ensure that arrestees get legal aid upon being arrested by the law enforcement agencies," he said. He said the draft bill stated that legal aid should be provided to incompetent parties, but that definition could deprive deserving people of legal aid.
He said the scope of the bill did not incorporate migrant workers who suffered at the hands of employers and agencies responsible for facilitating the employment process.
UNDP Programme Analyst for Justice, Rule of Law and Human Rights Tek Tamata said the current bill was not sufficient to address the issues of legal aid. He stressed the need to prepare fresh bill to replace the current laws - Legal Aid Act, 1997 - that was normative in approach.
Executive Director of Forum for Women, Law and Development Sabin Shrestha said the draft bill had given an impression that it wanted to merely manage legal aid but there was the need to make the bill 'victim-centric' and ensure that people had the fundamental right to seek legal aid. He said the bill did not list the provisions that could make legal aid providers accountable to their duties. There should be provisions that could ensure that legal aid providers do their jobs properly and provide quality service to legal aid seekers.
Executive Director of Public Defenders Society of Nepal Ajay Shankar Jha said the bill had failed to incorporate the provision that could provide security to legal aid providers.
He said legal aid providers who take the case of defendants in criminal cases sometimes face the wrath of locals and in such cases, there should be the provision of security to legal aid providers.
Former General Secretary of Nepal Bar Association Lilamani Paudel said legal aid should be provided to all who sought it and not only the financially vulnerable ones. He said legal aid related laws' scope should be expanded so that legal aid providers could go to communities to spread awareness about legal aid. He also said legal aid draft bill should also incorporate provisions related to psychosocial counselling.
President of Kathmandu Bar Association Ram Chandra Paudel said the bill must clearly define what 'pro bono' and legal aid services were. He said lawyers providing 'pro bono' services should get some recognition from the state and one way to do that would be to provide some tax deduction.
Paudel said there should be the provision for child specialists who could provide psychosocial counselling to case parties.
A version of this article appears in the print on December 29, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.
