The Legal System | 37
The Tel-Law Scheme offers taped legal information to the public in Cantonese, Putonghua and English. The tapes cover various aspects of law including matrimonial, landlord and tenant, criminal, financial, employment, environmental and administrative law. They are updated regularly and new tapes are added when new subjects are identified as being of interest to the public. During the year, 78 topics. were available and 40 210 calls were received.
Legal Aid Services Council
The Legal Aid Services Council is an independent statutory body established to advise the Chief Executive of the HKSAR 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. Chaired by a non-official who is not in the legal profession, the council includes lawyers, lay members and the Director of Legal Aid. During the year, it continued to conduct reviews of legal aid issues and of the services provided by the Legal Aid Department. The council has also considered the Government's proposal to launch a pilot scheme on legal aid for mediation of legally aided matrimonial cases and discussed with the Government the operation of the Legal Aid Services Council Ordinance. The council has also considered commissioning a consultancy to study legal aid practice on cost control and monitoring progress in other common law jurisdictions.
The Legal Aid Services Council also operates a scheme under which a legal aid applicant seeking to appeal to the Court of Final Appeal may apply for a counsel's certificate for a review of the Director of Legal Aid's refusal to grant legal aid on merits grounds. The council has reviewed the operation of the scheme during the year.
In 2004, aid was granted in respect of 79 applications, comprising 75 criminal cases and four civil cases, with a total financial commitment of $2,040,000.
The council continued to implement its work plan covering the period 2003 to 2008.
The Official Solicitor
The Director of Legal Aid was appointed the Official Solicitor under the Official Solicitor Ordinance, which took effect on 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, to act as committee of the estate of mentally incapacitated persons, to represent any party in care or protection proceedings and to act on behalf of a person committed to prison for contempt who is unable or unwilling to apply on his own behalf for release.
The Official Solicitor's case-load for 2003-04 was 291, an increase of 11 per cent over the previous financial year.
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