Strengthening legal aid for the disadvantaged

The workshop received many comments on increasing resources for legal aid work. Photo: PV

The situation is still difficult

According to statistics, after nearly 8 years of implementing the Law on Legal Aid (LLA) in 2017, thousands of vulnerable people such as the poor, the disabled, women, children... have found a foothold to access justice and protect their legal rights thanks to the State's free LLA policy with 139,000 cases. Most of the cases were assessed by the Ministry of Justice as being of good quality, successful and effective. However, this humane activity still has problems.

From the reality of supporting the disadvantaged, Master, lawyer Nguyen Huu Tien Anh, CEO of Phuc Khanh Law Company Limited, commented: Resources for legal aid work are currently thin, especially human resources at the grassroots level. Many legal aid workers hold multiple jobs and have not received specialized training, while people's needs are increasing.

Experts and scientists attending the seminar. Photo: PV

Typically, in some localities such as Phu Tho , each state legal aid center has on average only about 10-15 assistants, having to handle hundreds of cases each year. In the period 2020-2024, Phu Tho province has carried out more than 5,600 legal aid cases, of which 65% are criminal cases.

Not only is there a shortage of human resources, legal aid work also faces limitations in terms of funding, facilities and technology application. The coordination mechanism between prosecution agencies and social organizations is sometimes not synchronized, causing delays in the process of accessing and supporting the disadvantaged. There is a lack of feedback mechanism for people to evaluate the quality of legal services.

Ms. Le Thi Thuy, Director of the State Legal Aid Center No. 3 (Ho Chi Minh City), added: “Some current legal regulations are still overlapping and inconsistent between the Law on Legal Aid, the Law on Lawyers, the Law on Persons with Disabilities and procedural laws. In particular, people with disabilities who want to receive legal aid must prove their financial difficulties - this is a barrier that needs to be removed.”

Human resources - the decisive factor of quality

Lawyer, Dr. Dao Ngoc Chuyen, Vice President of the Vietnam Bar Federation, said that in the process of researching to fix institutional loopholes and expand the scope of legal aid, it is necessary to pay special attention to strengthening inter-sectoral coordination to promptly detect and implement legal aid for vulnerable groups. It is also necessary to enhance the responsibility of the Commune People's Committee in introducing legal aid to the people. At the same time, human resources are a factor in ensuring the quality of legal aid. It is necessary to build a team of professional assistants with political courage, good expertise, and understanding of the psychology of vulnerable people.

According to Mr. Dao Ngoc Chuyen, in addition to recruitment and systematic training, the State needs to consider elevating the status of legal aid workers to an independent judicial title, which can be called “legal aid lawyers”, with appropriate salaries and allowances. “When legal aid practitioners have appropriate income and status, they will have more motivation to serve justice,” Mr. Chuyen said.

In addition to the core force of the State, mobilizing a team of socialized lawyers is also very important. Currently, the number of lawyers participating in legal aid is still modest compared to the potential of more than 17,000 lawyers nationwide. There should be policies on tax exemption and reduction, support for training costs or practice points to encourage lawyers to participate in free legal aid cases.

Opinions at the workshop also reflected that complete dependence on the budget has caused many mobile legal aid programs, legal communication programs, and infrastructure investment to be interrupted.

Lawyer Nguyen Huu Tien Anh proposed: “There should be a more open mechanism to mobilize social resources, create a National Legal Aid Fund to receive funding from organizations, businesses, and individuals at home and abroad. At the same time, the state budget should give more priority to mountainous areas, remote and isolated areas.”

Experts also agree that integrating legal aid into national target programs on poverty reduction, new rural construction, ethnic minority development, etc. is the right direction to bring legal services to the grassroots level.

From another perspective, Lieutenant Colonel, Dr. Hoang Dinh Duyen, Department of Criminal Investigation - Ministry of National Defense, said that digital transformation is the key to bringing legal aid to people as quickly as possible, especially when eliminating intermediary levels in the administrative apparatus.

He proposed to strongly deploy online legal advice, perfect the legal framework on digital legal aid; build a national database on legal aid that can be integrated with the databases of the Police, the Procuracy, the Court and civil enforcement agencies to ensure consistency, confidentiality and ease of searching. This not only saves costs but also helps people in remote areas access the law more conveniently, contributing to building a fair, democratic and civilized society, so that no one is left behind on the journey to access justice.

Source: https://hanoimoi.vn/tang-cuong-tro-giup-phap-ly-cho-doi-tuong-yeu-the-722124.html