Kudat: Every Malaysian arrested by police and remanded by the court for any criminal offence is now entitled to free legal aid or service from a lawyer, said Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Datuk V K Liew.He said the legal aid service had been fully operational since April 2, this year, after training involving the country's lawyers since then, coupled with some reorganisation following the launching of the Legal Aid Foundation by the Prime Minister on Feb. 25 last year.
Presently, any accused also has access to free legal aid if a particular lawyer who is a member of the Sabah Law Association agrees to do pro bono.
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Alternatively, the High Court can also assign a lawyer paid for by a special fund under the Judiciary. This also applies to foreigners.
Speaking after visiting the Magistrate's Court, here, Liew said police are now obliged to inform suspects of their right to get a lawyer who is normally on standby.
"These lawyers have been trained under the scheme run by the Bar Council, the SLA and the Advocates Association of Sarawak.
The police will be supplied with a list of names of lawyers for the suspect to choose from.
"Of course, this does not stop any suspect from getting the service of any other lawyer not provided for by the Legal Aid Foundation.
This is when the suspect can afford to get the service of his own lawyer," he said.
He said previously, no free legal service was given to any suspect arrested and remanded by the court. "They would have to pay themselves if they needed a lawyer.
"Before April 2, only those charged in court, except for capital punishment cases, can apply for legal aid and they must satisfy the means test where they have to show an income below RM25,000 per year," he said.
Describing it as the single most important development in the country's criminal justice system, he said he had informed Parliament of this development last week.
Meanwhile, Liew was satisfied with the overall infrastructure of the courts in Sabah. "There are at the moment eight court buildings in Sabah each in Kota Kinabalu, Sandakan, Tawau, Beaufort, Keningau, Semporna, Kinabatangan, and Kudat. The rest are in the District Office of various districts.
"The courts are able to function well and I must say above par.
I'd like to congratulate every single judicial officer for doing a good job," he said.
"We all know that Information Technology has caught up with the courts.
Sabah and Sarawak are the two forerunners in the country in using IT in judicial proceedings.
"We now have e-filing of legal documents like summons, pleading, affidavits, submissions and many others. Lawyers nowadays can do e-filing from the comfort of their office.
"Kudat will start by June. I am told many other districts where there are law firms have also benefited from this. They don't need to travel to KK High Court just to file legal documents.
"They have used video conferencing rather earnestly where lawyers need not have to go outstation just to do mention and hearings.
A lawyer in Sandakan or Tawau or other towns need not have to go to KK Court or vice versa as the hearing can be done through video conferencing with lawyers and judges sitting at the other end.
"It is live and every word is recorded. It saves lots of time and costs for the court, the lawyers as well as the litigants. Even the proceeding in court is electronic now, where transcription is done almost instantly É this is a far cry from my time," said Liew who was a practising lawyer until he took up public office in 2008.
He said it showed that the legal fraternity had developed by leaps and bounds.
"It is indeed a positive development. I have no doubt this will augur well for the further enhancement of our judicial system," he said.
Also on hand were Tanjung Kapor Assemblyman, Datuk Teo Chee Kang, Director of Courts in Sabah, Ismail Brahim together with the Magistrate and judicial officers from the district's Magistrate's Court.
Meanwhile, Ismail disclosed that the Mobile Court would be getting two extra buses from the State Government in addition to the existing one.
"Hopefully, by end of this month, the buses will be operational and we will be able to use it to go to various districts to serve the people.
"At the moment the service for late birth registration has been suspended.
We expect to resume the exercise as soon as possible.
We are looking into beefing up a certain department to avoid any abuse of the system," he said without elaborating.
