Legal Aid Counsels : Some Changes

 Legal Aid Counsels

If there is effective legal aid is desired, then the payment system of legal aid counsels are to be revised and it must be enhanced. 

But that is only half work done. The other step is to radically change the process of selecting legal aid counsels. When the fee structure of legal aid counsels are to be enhanced (which obviously is funded from public money), it is needed that the criteria for selection for legal aid counsels should be very high. 

Merely paying lip service to legal aid in the name of Article 39-A of Constitution of India is nothing but a violation of Article 39-A.

How one revises the panel of legal aid counsels is also a big point. The panel should not be continued for more than one year. Every year fresh panel should be created. 

The fees must be per effective hearing basis and not on a consolidated basis. 

The system which feels that access to law should not be expensive tend to forget that any quality and effective legal aid can only be provided if encouragement to defend the case is rewarding enough. This need not be taken as a support of statement that everything which is expensive will always be good. 

There is no rule that higher fees means better legal representation. Let us take example of a simple arrest. If the concerned police officer agrees to enlarge an accused on bail on payment of bribe of just Rs. 10,000/- the client gets bail at Rs. 10,000/-. Such corrupt measures will be counterproductive to good Advocates because in such situations may be those who charges above Rs. 10,000/- for actual legal representation will be out and may be a large number of those who just take say Rs. 5,000/- but they may not be that good. Therefore, corruption in general has a negative effect on respect for Advocates. A higher corruption would mean lesser people might approach Advocates for actual legal representation (Which is different from fixing things by taking fees and then convincing the police officer to settle at a bribe of Rs. 5,000/-). 

Any vague assessments of Legal Aid Counsels has to be shunned. If A (a legal aid counsel) has taken up 1 case where he has taken least number of adjournments (Without written consent of party) and have been able to secure relief for the party, then that can be accorded higher marks than someone who has taken up 1 case but number of adjournments were taken and result was in favour of party. 

Then comes, where many adjournments were taken (Without written consent of party) and finally, result went against the client. 

The practical way is always to express performance in percentage. There can be a situation where a counsel guides the client not to proceed with the litigation and yet client insists on proceedings with the lis, then in such situation even if the result goes against the client, higher marks to Advocate need to be given. That makes up for the well known rule that outcome cannot be guaranteed by any Advocates. This will also keep those who take guarantees of outcome of litigation away, and rightly so.