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Search Warrants against Legal Aid Department
The issue of search warrants obtained by the Police against Legal Aid Department (LAD) was given extensive press coverage in May 2005 and had aroused wide public concern. The following is a chronology of events.
Towards the end of April 2005, the Director of Legal Aid (DLA) acted for a person who was indicted for the offence of rape (of his daughter) who ultimately pleaded guilty to that offence. The accused person had given various instructions and documents to DLA and his assigned solicitors for the trial. The convicted person was later charged with the offence of perverting the course of justice. The allegation was that the convicted person had for some time continued in a not guilty plea to the charge of rape and had caused various family members to give a joint false defence for him at the trial. On 27 April, the Police obtained a search warrant against LAD and attempted to execute it on 28 April. That was the first time in the history of LAD that a search warrant was issued against it. LAD staff resisted the proposed execution of the warrant on the basis that it was required to claim legal professional privilege in relation to the aided person's instructions. The Police agreed not to execute the warrant in the mean time.
On 5 May, the Police obtained a second search warrant and attempted to execute it. DLA made it clear to the Police that any seized documents would be the subject of a challenge in the High Court by judicial review, and therefore they would have to be placed in a non-transparent and locked container pending the decision of the Court. Upon this, the Police decided to desist in the execution of the warrant pending further legal advice. On the same day, the court granted DLA an ex-parte interim injunction to prevent the Commissioner of Police from executing the search warrant.
Subsequently, DLA applied for judicial review, and the hearing was scheduled in early August. In late July, the parties reached agreement that the Commissioner of Police would apply to withdraw the search warrant against LAD and instead apply for a witness summons requiring the attendance of a person from LAD to appear at the criminal trial (on perverting the course of justice) of the former aided person to give evidence and to produce documents relevant to the case. DLA agreed that it was settled law that legal professional privilege did not apply to communications between a client and his solicitor for the purpose of furtherance of any crime. The parties agreed that any dispute as to the question of privilege attaching to the documents sought to be produced would be left to the trial judge to decide. Meanwhile, the judicial review proceedings initiated by DLA were withdrawn by consent.
At the criminal trial on 22 August 2005, the defendant pleaded guilty to the charge of perverting the course of justice, and it was not necessary for the trial judge to decide on the question of legal professional privilege attaching to the documents sought to be produced.
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