Barbara Gayle, Staff Reporter

Glen Cruickshank, executive director of the Legal Aid Council, is pleased with the efforts Government is making to ensure all persons who are charged with serious offences are afforded legal representation.

"By international standards, Jamaica ranks highly with more prosperous countries for our efforts at making justice available to all," Cruickshank told The Sunday Gleaner last week.

He said Amnesty International and other human rights groups were always quick to give the Government a failing grade in its efforts to provide access to justice by persons of limited means in the society. But he argued that nothing had ever been said about the efforts to curb excesses by certain members of the Jamaica Constabulary Force through the extension of the legal-aid system.

"Some Jamaicans were always happy to join with foreigners in criticising our own efforts without pointing out that despite our meagre resources, there are committed individuals who are willing to walk the extra mile to help our fellowmen," Cruickshank commented.

"The Duty Counsel Programme, which provides an attorney-at-law to every person of whatever means, once taken into custody and before the person is questioned by the police, has been in force for sometime now and was supported by the Government when it was in opposition," he said.

Cruickshank expressed pride that the Duty Counsel Programme has gone a far way in reducing arbitrary arrests and has resulted in many innocent persons not being charged and put to the expense and trauma of defending themselves.

Duty counsel may apply to the court for habeas corpus (for the person to be taken before the court) when persons have been held in custody for more than 72 hours without being charged or taken before a justice of the peace for remand, Cruickshank disclosed. The duty counsel, he added, made representation for station bail before the accused person was taken to court.

Services selflessly offered

"It is of some credit that at the criminal Bar, there are about 300 attorneys-at-law located across the length and breadth of Jamaica, who selflessly offer their services under the legal-aid programme," Cruickshank reported. "Many, including senior and junior lawyers, did not even submit a bill for their services and no praise can be too highly heaped on them for their efforts in keeping the wheels of justice turning," he remarked.

"The underlying principle of the Legal Aid Act is that the might of the State should not be pitted against an individual without him being able to have a legally trained person to assist him in defending himself," Cruickshank emphasised.

For the financial year April 2007 to March 2008, $42 million was paid out in legal aid fees. There has not been an increase in legal-aid fees since the inception of the programme in 2000, but Cruickshank says he has been given the assurance that an increase is in the pipeline. There are about 320 lawyers doing legal-aid assignments.

Asked about problems relatives and friends have in getting bail for accused persons, Cruickshank said that in many instances when bail was offered by resident magistrates or High Court judges, some conditions laid down by the administrators made it impossible for the persons to be bailed.

"In some instances," he said, persons have been put to expense to get up-to-date valuations on land when the value on the title was far in excess of the amount of the bail bond." He said also that in many instances, especially in rural parishes, persons had to be taken back to court sometimes for the offer of bail to be varied or reduced.

"There are times when the cost to do the valuation is much more than the bail offered," Cruickshank said. He pointed out that there was provision in the new Bail Act for the amount in which bail has been offered to be lodged at the court's office.