{"id":147823,"date":"2015-07-23T15:20:05","date_gmt":"2015-07-23T09:50:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=147823"},"modified":"2015-07-23T15:20:05","modified_gmt":"2015-07-23T09:50:05","slug":"ensure-legal-aid-services-to-north-and-east-friday-forum-tells-justice-minister","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/ensure-legal-aid-services-to-north-and-east-friday-forum-tells-justice-minister\/","title":{"rendered":"Ensure Legal Aid Services To North And East: Friday Forum Tells Justice Minister"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;It is vital that legal aid services to the North and the East, which were disrupted during the war, are now sustained with permanent staff. Furthermore, where possible, legal aid services should be expanded to support efforts of reconciliation and reconstruction.&#8221; says the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?s=Friday+Forum&amp;x=14&amp;y=4\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Friday Forum<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_147825\" style=\"width: 187px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Manouri-Muttetuwegama.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-147825\" class=\"size-full wp-image-147825\" src=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/Manouri-Muttetuwegama.jpg\" alt=\"Manouri Muttetuwegama\" width=\"177\" height=\"214\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-147825\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Manouri Muttetuwegama<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Issuing a statement the Friday Forum said;&#8221;recent news reports that the Legal Aid Centres in the North may be curtailed due to the winding up of donor funding in August 2015 is worrying. What lapses, if any, on the part of the Legal Aid Commission and the Ministry of Justice led to this situation? The Friday Forum calls on the Legal Aid Commissioners, the Minister of Justice and the Government to rectify this funding problem and ensure the maintenance of these Legal Aid Centres with State funds.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>We publish below the statement in full;<\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"line-height: 1.5;\">The Legal Aid Commission\u2014Its National Importance and Role in Reconciliation<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Friday Forum has consistently emphasised the importance of State institutions in ensuring citizens\u2019 democratic rights and equality before the law. The Legal Aid Commission is one such institution \u2013 while not prominent in the public sphere \u2013 that performs the critical function of providing free legal services to the economically marginalised sections of our society. The Friday Forum reiterates the national importance of the Legal Aid Commission to ensure the rights of all citizens as well as its relevance for reconciliation in the post-war era and the reconstruction of legal infrastructure and judicial functions in particular in war-torn areas.<\/p>\n<p>The right to a lawyer and to be heard through a lawyer, in criminal cases, is both a Constitutional right and a right provided under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) Act No. 56 of 2007. The need for legal aid was recognised by the parliament when it passed the Legal Aid Act No. 27 of 1978, where it states: \u201cThe objects of the Commission shall be to operate throughout Sri Lanka an efficient Legal Aid Scheme to provide to deserving persons\u2014legal advice; funds for the conduct of legal and other proceedings for and on behalf of such persons; the services of attorneys-at-law to represent them; such other assistance as may be necessary for the conduct of such proceedings.\u201d In addition to such free litigation services, the Legal Aid Act provides the Commission with a broad mandate to provide other \u201clegal assistance\u201d to be made \u201ceasily accessible to deserving persons\u201d and to develop legal aid educational programmes and special programmes.<\/p>\n<p>Performing such functions of national importance requires adequate State funds to the Legal Aid Commission. The excuse of budget constraints is unacceptable; for example, in 2014 the allocation for the Legal Aid Commission was Rs. 146 million, a mere one thousandth of allocation towards the Ministry of Ports and Highways amounting to Rs. 145 billion. The bottom line is State priorities towards citizens\u2019 rights and their equality before the law, which is critical to ensure the democratic fabric of our society. Therefore, the State\u2019s commitment to legal aid must improve as a matter of urgency; for a range of civil and criminal cases for the disadvantaged in our society. Too many aggrieved persons are unable to seek justice because of the high costs of litigation. That in turn gives rise to many social issues, including violence as people take the law into their own hands. Legal aid services to the people must improve all over the island as a matter of priority if the rule of law is to be protected. In particular, the need for improvement is acutely felt in war-torn areas.<\/p>\n<p>In this context, recent news reports that the Legal Aid Centres in the North may be curtailed due to the winding up of donor funding in August 2015 is worrying. What lapses, if any, on the part of the Legal Aid Commission and the Ministry of Justice led to this situation? The Friday Forum calls on the Legal Aid Commissioners, the Minister of Justice and the Government to rectify this funding problem and ensure the maintenance of these Legal Aid Centres with State funds. It is vital that legal aid services to the North and the East, which were disrupted during the war, are now sustained with permanent staff. Furthermore, where possible, legal aid services should be expanded to support efforts of reconciliation and reconstruction.<\/p>\n<p>The Friday Forum respects the indispensable role of many of our State institutions and values the work of individuals who carry out the related duties. The meaningful functioning of the Legal Aid Commission requires the commitment of the lawyers in their daily duties as much as the vision and leadership of the Legal Aid Commissioners and the Minister and officials of the Ministry of Justice. The Friday Forum in the spirit of keeping State institutions accountable to its citizens will continue to engage with the priorities and functioning of the Legal Aid Commission and other State institutions.<\/p>\n<p>Professor Savitri Goonesekere &#8211; Manouri Muttetuwegama &#8211; Ahilan Kadirgamar<\/p>\n<p>For and on Behalf of<\/p>\n<p>Professor Savitri Goonesekere, Ms. Manouri Muttetuwegama, Mr. Ahilan Kadirgamar, Dr. A.C.Visvalingam, Mr. Pulasthi Hewamanna, Professor Arjuna Aluwihare, Dr. Selvy Thiruchandran, Mr. Faiz-urRahman, Mr. Javid Yusuf, Professor Gameela Samarasinghe Ms, Damaris Wickremesekera, Mr. Tissa Jayatilaka, Ms. Radhika Coomaraswamy, Rt. Reverend Duleep de Chickera, Dr. Deepika Udagama, Mr. Ananda Galappatti Mr. S. C. C . Elankovan, Professor Camena Guneratne, Rev. Dr. Jayasiri Peiris, Ms. Shanthi Dias, Mr. Danesh Casie-Chetty, Ms. Suriya Wickremasinghe, Mr. D. Wijayanandana, Mr. Chandra Jayaratne<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":147825,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,1,6980,2375],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-147823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-news","category-sri-lanka-parliamentary-elections-2015","category-stories"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Ensure Legal Aid Services To North And East: Friday Forum Tells Justice Minister - Colombo Telegraph<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/ensure-legal-aid-services-to-north-and-east-friday-forum-tells-justice-minister\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ensure Legal Aid Services To North And East: Friday Forum Tells Justice Minister - 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