When I taught for one year, I had very many bright students. I am quite convinced that a lot of students would like to go into legal aid. But the whole question is one of supporting yourself because the remuneration a legal aid lawyer is so paltry that really you cannot do a good job. And then ultimately your loyalty is to the system and not to the client at all.
This is one thing which I think all of us need to fight for.
For example, I always joke with people that if you go to any High Court, there is this huge office with Advocate General, Deputy AG, Assistant AG, so many Government Pleaders. Everybody is on the roles. For the State, you have so many people on the roles, what about for the citizen?
The whole idea of legal aid is to balance the issue of citizens not being able to defend themselves. So you need equally well-paid lawyers and I am sure even if a reasonable payment starts for legal aid lawyers, a lot of young people who otherwise are being forced to go into firms and so on will come to litigation and will come to legal aid. I think they are many young people who are idealistic at the time when they join. But they have student loans to pay back, they do not want to be dependent on their parents anymore, they need to earn something, they end up not prioritising legal aid.
So I think we need as students and as lawyers to fight for a better legal aid system. And once people join legal aid, I think there are few things which we must take very seriously. It should be mandatory once you take vakalatnama as a legal aid lawyer that you have at least have one meeting with the client. You must know their side of the story. It might be quite different from what is in the chargesheet. There might be so many things you do not know, and nobody knows the facts better than the client. That is one thing we should always remember.
When the chargesheet comes – many of the women were illiterate, they did not know Marathi language, for them to defend themselves… you have to meet them, explain to them. You should also be in very close communication with them. If there is a problem in their family, there is a death, some child has fallen ill or if a person is being hospitalised – these things must be brought before the court, and that is your job as a legal aid lawyer. And many times, what we have found is that particularly during the pre-trial part, legal aid lawyers are not able to pay attention to them and don’t pay attention to them. We need to take that very seriously. I think a lot of miscarriage of justice happens because of this. I do hope many more people go to legal aid, and I am even contemplating to filing a PIL to improve legal aid facilities, including the remuneration for lawyers. Because if we do not have effective legal aid, then to say that constitutionally we are providing this, we fall very short of the mark of proper representation.
Source: Barandbench
