LAC Continues to Provide Equal Access to Justice to All

The Legal Aid Council (LAC) continues to carry out its core mandate of providing equal access to justice to all Jamaicans.

Executive Director of the LAC, Dian Watson, told JIS News that the Council’s mission is to provide, in a timely manner, quality professional legal services while ensuring effective access to justice for all.

“We take this ensuring access very seriously at the Legal Aid Council,” Mrs. Watson emphasised.

She informed that for the 2023/24 fiscal year, more than 7,000 persons benefited from the services offered by the Council, including consultations offered through the mobile unit.

The LAC has also expanded its services to include the provision of legal advice to more persons in the disabled communities.

“So, we have always offered legal representation and advice to all vulnerable persons/groups and, of course, persons with disabilities are among the most vulnerable among us. But we recognised that they were not taking full advantage of the services that we offer and so we decided to take a more focused approach by going to them and offering the services to them,” Mrs. Watson said.

As part of this focus, 24 persons, including empanelled attorneys from the LAC, have completed training in sign language through the Jamaica Association for the Deaf (JAD).

The seven-week exercise, which was offered online and face to face, introduced participants to the vocabulary and structure of Jamaican sign language and raised awareness about the deaf culture.

Mrs. Watson informed that training would resume for two additional cohorts (three and four) between July and August, noting that “we are hoping to have at least 80 persons trained this year”.

In the meantime, the Executive Director said for this financial year, the LAC is planning to have two additional fairs for persons with disabilities.
Mrs. Watson said the hope is to have one of the fairs in June, in Kingston and another one in September, in St. Mary.

“In addition to that, we are hoping also to have a women’s symposium later in the year. We want to do something with women and the law, property rights, all the services that they can benefit from,” she explained.

The Executive Director is also encouraging more lawyers to get empanelled on the LAC.

“I would love to encourage the attorneys to come in and [get] empanelled. They will complete an application form, of course, and send in their credentials, and we will have an orientation session and they are empanelled. It is a simple process… . We are always seeking ways to improve the quality of service that we offer,” Ms. Watson said.

“The sign language training is just one of the many things that we’re hoping to do to enhance the quality of service that we offer and to assist the attorneys to better serve their clients,” she added.

Currently, there are more than 800 lawyers empanelled to serve at the LAC.

“We still encourage the lawyers to come in because, from time to time, we have some underserved areas like in some of the rural areas, so you don’t have sufficient numbers of attorneys. So, the more attorneys we have, the more some of them will go and assist in those areas,” Mrs. Watson noted.

For persons seeking assistance through the LAC, or who have relatives detained or arrested, they can call (876) 948-6999.

If Jamaicans need an attorney to go to court with them, they can make an application with the Council or they can make an application at the court.

“If it is for court representation, an application process is required and what we will do is a means test to look at their income and their expenditure, to determine whether or not they can make a contribution to their defence. But if they cannot make a contribution, they’ll get an attorney assigned to them anyway,” Mrs. Watson explained.

“For duty counsel they can give us a call and they can also ask the police to call duty counsel, because the police are duty bound by law to call… if someone is in custody who is arrested or detained and cannot afford an attorney,” she added.

Persons in need of legal advice may also email the LAC at aid.legal@moj.gov.jm, call the Ministry of Justice’s toll-free number at 888-458-7842 or send a message via WhatsApp at 876-505-9375.

“The mobile justice unit, we travel across the entire island. Our schedule is on the Ministry of Justice’s website (https://moj.gov.jm). Persons can go on it to see where we will be. We give free advice to anyone who needs it. We also do outreach, so we’ll go to an institution or to a group to speak to them on any area of the law that they require us to speak on,” Mrs. Watson said.