This newspaper’s editorial on Malta’s legal aid system (February 23) is appreciated in that it raises an important access to justice issue.
There are, however, some general rather sweeping remarks, which, in my opinion, do not do justice to the Maltese system of legal aid, including a remark to the effect “that lawyers appointed under the legal aid system are often, if not regularly, failing to fulfil their duty”.
It must be pointed out that our legal aid system includes various safeguards to protect the litigant being assisted by a legal aid lawyer.
Provisions in the Code of Organisation and Civil Procedure set out the duties of an advocate for legal aid and also establish the penalty applicable to an advocate for legal aid who refuses to continue a case without just cause.
Although an advocate for legal aid is appointed by the Civil Court, First Hall, once appointed, s/he has to abide by the provisions of the Code of Organisation and Civil Procedure and any act or omission by such an advocate is only imputable to him/her and the advocate for legal aid is personally liable for such acts or omissions as provided by law.
Moreover, if a litigant assisted by an advocate for legal aid feels the advocate for legal aid is not assisting him/her in a proper manner, the litigant can bring this fact to the attention of the Legal Aid Malta Agency to take the proper steps as necessary.
It must also be pointed out that, over the last few years, an independent legal aid agency was established to completely detach the legal aid system from the courts and from the Office of the Attorney General (under the budget of which it was previously administered) and honoraria payable to legal aid lawyers, although remaining rather modest when judged by the standards of private legal practice, have been raised considerably.
It is also not often that applicants before the European Court of Human Rights seek the assistance of legal aid lawyers since such litigants are normally assisted either by their own private lawyers or by lawyers engaged by NGOs.
The attention drawn by the European Court of Human Rights to the possible shortcomings of Malta’s legal aid system in the field of international human rights litigation will be appropriately addressed.
Finally, it is worth pointing out that the European Court of Human Rights unanimously decided to strike the application filed by Stephen Galli off its list of cases after observing that he did not claim on his part that he had not received any correspondence from the Court and, consequently, considered that the applicant no longer wished to pursue his application before the European Court of Human Rights.