No need for independent legal aid service, say advisers in U-turn

The legal aid service should remain in the hands of the government, according to an official advisory body that has backtracked on a recommendation it made 15 years ago to set up an independent legal aid authority.

The Legal Aid Department, a government-run body providing help to people unable to afford legal representation, should instead be "repositioned" from being accountable to the Home Affairs Bureau to answering to the chief secretary, which would be a reversion to the arrangement in place before 2007.

The recommendation was made in a report submitted by the Legal Aid Services Council to the chief executive late last month that was seen by the South China Morning Post. The council was formed in 1996 and empowered to advise on "the feasibility and desirability of the establishment of an independent legal aid authority". It passed a resolution in 1998 on setting up an independent authority.

Fifteen years on, it now says there is no need for an independent body on the basis that there has been no "substantiated example of the government's interference" in the Legal Aid Department.

"The council agrees ... that there is no immediate need to establish an independent legal aid authority," council chairman Dr Eric Li Ka-cheung stated in a letter to Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying. "The council believes that the proposal to revert [the department] back to the purview of the Chief Secretary will leave ... the community in no doubt that the status and independence of [the department] has been hitherto fully restored."

It rejected placing the department under Leung himself, saying the chosen option "is less likely to provoke another round of unnecessary speculation".

The report, prepared by consultants Deloitte, recommended that the director of legal aid continue to be a civil servant and that the council have a say on the appointment. The council, though, said further discussions with the government would be needed on this point.