***********************************************************
The Government published in the Gazette today (December 16) two regulations that would improve the legal aid regime and increase access to legal aid.
"The Legal Aid (Assessment of Resources and Contributions) (Amendment) Regulation 2005 seeks to relax the assessment criteria by allowing more items to be deducted or disregarded from an applicant's income and capital when the Legal Aid Department (LAD) assesses his disposable financial resources. This enables more people to become financially eligible for legal aid," a Government spokesman said.
In calculating the disposable income and capital of a legal aid applicant, the items that can be deducted or disregarded will be expanded to cover (i) maintenance payment; (ii) the amount to provide for the care of all the dependants of the applicant during the time that he is at work, irrespective of whether he is absent from home, whether the dependant is living with him and whether he is self-employed or in employment; and (iii) insurance monies received by the applicant that are required to meet his medical needs following an injury to which the legal aid claim relates.
Based on past experience, the proposed measures will entail for the Legal Aid Department an estimated extra recurrent expenditure of $8.59 million per annum in anticipation of an increased number of qualified legal aid applicants.
Under the same amendment regulation, the rate of contribution that applies to an aided person who is successful in his claim under the Supplementary Legal Aid Scheme will be reduced to 10% from the present 12% of the damages received, that is, an aided person with a successful claim will be able to retain 2% more of his damages.
As to the Legal Aid (Charge on Property) (Rate of Interest) Regulation, the spokesman said that at present, a legally aided person had to contribute towards the legal costs of the legally aided proceedings. The Director of Legal Aid was entitled to a first charge on any property recovered for the aided person from the proceedings in respect of any amount that the aided person had to pay. If the Director agreed to defer enforcing the first charge, interest was payable by the aided person. The interest rate is at present fixed at 10% per annum.
The spokesman said, "Given that the current market interest rate is 7.75%, adopting a fixed rate of 10% per annum may not be fair to the aided people. The Government therefore proposes to adopt a formula so that the interest rate will be lower than the commercial best lending rate and will follow more closely the market movements. This improvement measure will further benefit legally aided people."
The two pieces of subsidiary legislation will be tabled in the Legislative Council (LegCo) on December 21. A LegCo Brief has been issued.
The improvement measures have been proposed pursuant to a comprehensive review of the criteria for assessing the financial eligibility of legal aid applicants, and following consultations with the Legal Aid Services Council, the LegCo Panel on Administration of Justice and Legal Services and legal professional bodies.
Ends/Friday, December 16, 2005
Issued at HKT 12:46
NNNN
