©Free Malaysia Today (Used by permission)
by V Anbalagan
PETALING JAYA: Putrajaya must revive the flagging five–year–old legal aid scheme for the poor as the programme doubles up as an excellent platform to train young lawyers in criminal practice, a former Malaysian Bar president said.
Ragunath Kesavan said through this scheme, young lawyers are able to represent clients during remand, bail applications, trials and appeals.
“The lawyers come in handy to represent poor and needy clients who otherwise have to pay hefty legal fees to engage counsel,” Ragunath told FMT.
He said through the programme, these lawyers could acquire the experience and expertise to later graduate to handling serious criminal cases.
He said this in response to recent concerns expressed by Chief Justice Arifin Zakaria that there was a shortage of criminal lawyers, especially to represent clients facing the death penalty.
Ragunath and his Bar Council members, who were instrumental in persuading Prime Minister Najib Razak to start the scheme in 2012, said the programme must be given a new lease of life as it brought immense benefit to the poor, especially the Malays and Bumiputeras in rural areas.
FMT recently reported that many lawyers registered with the scheme are shying away from representing the poor and needy as payments have not been prompt since August last year.
Ragunath said the scheme had received accolades as being one of the best in a developing country.
He said touting, a misconduct in the legal practice, among a group of lawyers could also be reduced if the scheme operated well without any hiccoughs.
The soliciting of clients by using unfair advantage by the overzealous counsel has resulted in new lawyers being sidelined to take up criminal cases.
Ragunath said the rule of law in any judicial system would be rendered meaningless if the poor were denied access to justice.
“The poor will be marginalised if they have to borrow money or pawn their valuables to pay hefty legal fees,” he added.
Najib launched the National Legal Aid Foundation (YBGK) in 2012 to provide legal aid to all Malaysians earning less than RM36,000 a year.
The prime minister had said the need for the foundation was raised to him because it was found that 80% of those charged in courts for criminal cases were unrepresented because they could not afford the legal fees.
The Cabinet approved RM20 million in a show of its support to uphold justice and guarantee Malaysians equal rights under the law.
Current president of the Malaysian Bar, Steven Thiru had also said YBGK has extended its scope to include assisting persons on death row to prepare petitions for clemency to the Pardons Board since 2014.
YBGK is a joint enterprise between the government and the three Bars of Malaysia – the Malaysian Bar, Sabah Law Association and the Advocates’ Association of Sarawak.
Steven said the three Bars had, to date, trained a pool of 1,804 lawyers, who were paid a nominal fee for handling YBGK files.
Between April 2012 and December 2015, YBGK lawyers handled 535,986 cases.