THE LEGAL SYSTEM
The scheme also assigns barristers and solicitors to advise defendants facing extradition, to monitor the one-way viewer identification parades conducted by the police, and to represent hawkers upon their appeals to the Municipal Services Appeals Board.
More than 1 000 barristers and solicitors were on the duty lawyer roster and 36 715 defendants were represented under the Duty Lawyer Scheme in 1998.
The Tel-Law Scheme offers taped legal information for the public. The tapes cover various aspects of law including matrimonial, landlord and tenant, criminal, financial, employment, environmental and administrative law. They are constantly updated and new tapes are added when new subjects are identified as being of interest to the public. During the year, 69 topics were available and 94 436 calls were received.
Legal Aid Services Council
The Legal Aid Services Council is an independent statutory body established to advise the government on legal aid policies. It also supervises the provision of legal aid services by the Legal Aid Department without interfering with its day to day operation. The council is chaired by a non-official who is not in the legal profession. Its members include lawyers, lay members and the Director of Legal Aid. During the year, it made suggestions on several aspects in the provision of legal aid services. It also produced a report recommending the establishment of an independent legal aid authority which is being considered by the government.
The Official Solicitor
The Director of Legal Aid has been appointed Official Solicitor under the Official Solicitor Ordinance since August 1, 1991.
The Official Solicitor's main duties are to act as guardian ad litem or next friend in legal proceedings for persons under disability of age or mental capacity, as representative of deceased persons' estates for the purpose of legal proceedings, as Official Trustee and Judicial Trustee, representing patients in proceedings under the Mental Health Ordinance, representing children in matrimonial proceedings and in the Juvenile Court. The Official Solicitor received 128 requests for his representation in 1998.
Rights of the individual
The Sino-British Joint Declaration on the Question of Hong Kong and the Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China, provide that the provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) as applied to Hong Kong shall remain in force. The HKSAR's first report in the light of the two Covenants will be submitted to the UN in early 1999.
The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region continues to abide by the major international conventions on human rights, namely, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT), the Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).
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