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SCMP Reporter

AN extra eight legal counsel and 12 support staff working full time for a year would be needed to clear the backlog of applications for legal aid lodged by almost 2,000 Vietnamese boat people.

  It would cost about $12.7 million, with an extra $7.7 million for the expected workload from Vietnamese cases between now and June 30, 1997, legislators were told yesterday.

  And the work could only be carried out if available staff could be found.

  The Legal Aid Department workload was detailed in a briefing paper to legal services panel and security panel members investigating delays and concerns relating to Vietnamese claims.

  Legal Aid director Lady Cheung told legislators her department was 'almost at breaking point', largely due to the backlog caused by almost 400 applications made by Vietnamese after the controversial raid on the Whitehead detention centre in April last year.

  The claims were for injuries sustained or belongings lost in the raid. Less than half the applications had been issued legal aid certificates and all but one were awarded this month.

  The joint panel inquiry was established after a report in the South China Morning Post revealed the delays in the deportation of applicants.

  The panels gave their support for the Legal Aid Department to seek the extra funding necessary to clear the 1,847 active files on Vietnamese boat people. Most of the files are for judicial reviews which seek rescreening for refugee status.

  They also asked the Government to explain why it had deported many of the applicants.

  Some panel members suggested the Government had deliberately targeted people who had applied for legal aid.

  Government Refugees Co-ordinator Brian Bresnihan said there was no question of the legal aid process being protracted and people had not been deliberately targeted.

  He said that such a small group of people had been cleared for return to Vietnam by Hanoi that it was necessary to deport some legal aid applicants.

  He refused to give an undertaking that people now granted legal aid would not be deported.

  Mr Bresnihan said there were genuine claimants, and pursuing claims from Vietnam after repatriation would be 'more difficult'.

  Lady Cheung estimated the department would receive an average of 700 new cases a year from Vietnamese until 1997.



Legal Aid's cases pile up