It is exactly two years since the Sierra Leone Parliament passed the Legal Aid Law that seeks to address the justice needs of indigent (poor) Sierra Leoneans. Following the enactment, the Centre for Accountability and Rule of Law (CARL) and other human rights groups welcomed the law, and described it as “progressive” and “innovative”. However,
CARL also warned that a smooth and effective implementation of the law would require a coordinated and well-resourced implementation schedule developed jointly by the government and its partners. Quite naturally, the government is expected to take the lead on rolling out the implementation strategy by providing resources and coordinating local efforts. Unfortunately, progress towards implementation has been generally slow.
There is high level of poverty in Sierra Leone, which means that there will be huge demands on the legal aid board, and invariably the legal aid scheme will be a very expensive project. This perhaps explains why implementation has been somewhat slow. In fairness to the Justice Sector Coordinating Office (JSCO), a government-funded unit which has been coordinating the implementation efforts, there have been significant efforts to work with non-state actors to build a strong coalition for implementation. Thanks to such efforts, a few noticeable steps have been taken towards implementation:
First, members of the Legal Aid Board have been appointed and the Chair was recently approved by Parliament. The Attorney-General and Minister of Justice has asked the JSCO to support the Board until it is fully established. In addition, a full Board meeting has been convened, where sub-committees were set up to work on various issues. Before the composition of the Board, JSCO worked with a number of non-government organisations to develop some tools for the board, including a mapping report and a communication strategy. Two sub-committees, including the Human Resource Committee and Budget and Implementation Planning, have been set up and meeting already started. These recent efforts somewhat indicate a measure of willingness by the government to support a fully functioning legal aid board. The Board now has a responsibility and an opportunity to build on the current foundation and make legal aid a reality for millions of indigent Sierra Leoneans.
Nonetheless, the Board faces immense challenges, and a great deal of efforts would be required to overcome them. In the immediate future, the Board would need to focus on addressing the logistical and funding gaps. It is still not clear whether any financial allocation was made in the 2014 budget for the operations of the Legal Aid Board. The Ministry of Justice might need to either submit a supplementary budget to parliament for approval or slice its meagre budget to support the board; at least for the rest of this year. Government funding will definitely be available at some point, but it won’t be adequate to run a fully functioning legal aid scheme. The Board will need a lot more than government-approved funds to implement its strategy.
Raising funds for its operations seems to be one of the natural functions of the current board, which is why it is important that they hire an Executive Secretary with a proven record of fundraising and programme management. A good fundraiser and programme manager would help the board tap into local and international funding opportunities in ways that would make the scheme increasingly less dependent on state funds. For now, though, the government must be willing to take the lead in providing funds. Any further delays would only reinforce public suspicion that government’s commitment is weak.
The board members should understand that public expectation of what they can deliver is massive. The Board, therefore, has the unenviable task of managing public expectation so that the scheme’s performance, legitimacy and credibility do not come into question even before it starts work. It is also important that the Board embarks on a deliberate effort of establishing itself as an independent unit capable of delivering a legal aid scheme without excessive dependence on state actors. Excessive dependence on the state, particularly for professional direction, could undermine public confidence in the scheme.
There is genuine public expectation that the legal aid board will ultimately deliver on its mandate, even if most people understand that it will take a while before the board becomes fully functioning. What is important, though, is for the Board to make strong efforts to respond to the numerous challenges it faces at the moment. One of the ways of doing this is to be able to prioritize its interventions based on genuine need and the available resources. Another way is to ensure that the Board is transparent and accountable in the way it administers the scheme and how funds are utilized. To the extent that it can do these on a consistent basis, there can only be huge prospects for success.
Effective implementation of the legal aid law is important not merely because the law says so; there is genuine need for it across the country. At the moment, there are hundreds of inmates in various prisons and detention facilities across the country without access to legal advice or representation. Many attribute the overcrowding at the maximum security prison in Freetown to inability of inmates to pay for legal services. To make it worse, access to lawyers outside Freetown, in particular, remains a major challenge. There are credible reports of private practitioners either refusing or showing little commitment to represent persons who face serious offences such as murder. The major reason being the paltry amount of remuneration the state provides to such lawyers. The Legal Aid Act was promulgated to provide solutions to such problems.
In conclusion, indigent Sierra Leoneans have waited enough and they can’t wait much longer for justice. It is important that the Legal Aid Board does not slow down any more, and that the government provides the much needed resources to support the work of the board. Any further delays in providing the required resources would further raise questions about the state’s commitment to responding to the justice needs of poor citizens, who have suffered enough in a system that hardly protects the poor.
Ibrahim Tommy is the Executive Director of the Centre for Accountability and Rule of Law (CARL)