36 The Legal System
Legal representation is also offered to children/juveniles in care or protection proceedings who are deprived or at risk of being deprived of their liberty under the Protection of Children and Juveniles Ordinance. In 2005, 526 children/juveniles were represented under this Scheme (including 433 new cases and 93 cases carried forward from 2004).
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 36 551 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. It 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 the grounds of merit.
The council also supported the Legal Aid Department's pilot scheme on legal aid for mediation of legally aided matrimonial cases and commissioned a consultancy to study the ways other common law jurisdictions control costs in legal aid practice and monitor the progress of cases. The council is in the course of producing a document, 'Legal Aid in Hong Kong'.
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 caseload for 2004-2005 was 329, an increase of 13 per cent over the previous financial year.
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