Law Association slams State over poor legal fees

The Law Association has come out in strong defence of actions taken by legal officers of the public service. In a release issued by the Law Association of Trinidad and Tobago, the President, Karl Hudson-Phillips QC, strongly criticised the State and the pace in which it seems to be dealing with the unsatisfactory conditions under which legal officers are working.

The release states that “The law Association deplores the lack of urgency on the part of the State in redressing the unsatisfactory conditions of service of legal officers of the state. The problem is one which has existed for at least a decade and has resulted in an increasing decline in the levels of staffing and the perceived lack of competence of those officers.” Hudson-Phillips explained that the problems are most visible, and are by no means confined to the conditions of service of state, as conditions for attorneys in the department of the Director of Public Prosecutions, state attorneys in the Solicitor General’s Department and Ministries are equally appalling.

In his hard hitting release, the President of the Law Association chastised the Government, saying, “Of all the professional services provided to and by the government, the work done by law officers, particularly Senior Law Officers, is least capable of being totally contracted out. “Hospitals, post offices, telephone companies and even prison services can be totally privatised, but the job performed by senior law officers in particular is less capable of being totally provided by the private sector. Some legal services may be contracted but we must have lawyers employed by the state and they must be well compensated.”

While successive Governments seem to have started to appreciate the real value to the society of having reasonably well remunerated High Court Judges, Hudson-Phillips said the terms and conditions of services of Magistrates and legal officers are totally inadequate given the importance of their functions and the necessity to maintain a high morale of competent officers. But the irony of the situation, according to Hudson-Phillips, is that while the state appears reluctant to improve conditions of service of legal officers, vast sums of money are paid to members of the private bar (both local and foreign) to advise the government to appear on behalf of the courts.

Hudson-Phillips cites an example of the irony: Under the Legal Aid Scheme all accused persons appearing in the high court are provided with lawyers paid for by the state. The level of fees paid under the Scheme means that fairly junior attorneys-of-law can earn disproportionately more than senior legal officers of vastly more experience and competence. “It is no wonder that there are high levels of vacancies in the legal service,” Hudson-Phillips said. The present levels of indiscipline in the society, according to Hudson-Phillips, is due to the breakdown of the judicial system at the level of the Magistrates’ Courts.

With more than 90 percent of all criminal cases coming before the Magistrates’ Courts, the breakdown of that system has meant that there is no correlation between the commission of the offence and the punishment for it. “Justice is not swift. This has bred a culture of impunity in the society. No number of ‘operation anacondas’ or special squads will solve the situation unless attention is paid to the root causes of the problem, one of which has been the total collapse of the judicial system at Magistrate level.” The release further stated, “The Association also wishes to place on record its support for legal officers employed with the government in their efforts to secure appropriate levels of remuneration and conditions of service.”