46TH ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

SUB-COMMITTEE REPORTS

LEGAL AID CENTRE (SLAC)

Chairperson : Komathi Arunasalam

Management Panel : Kanesrau Appalanaidu Members Sritheran Renganathan Pushpawati Binti Rosman Sasha Lyna Binti Abdul Latif Wan Hidayati Nadirah Binti Wan Ahmad Nasir Mohd Radzlan Bin Jalaludin Komathi Arunasalam Shamini Muthu Krishnan Juanita Binti Johari

Ex-Officio : Rajpal Singh Sumathi Murugiah

A. REPORT OF THE MANAGEMENT PANEL

Introduction

The year under review has been a challenging year where the Legal Aid Centre Selangor has continued its services by advising and representing clients who were in need of legal aid. The LAC Selangor has gone further this year by paying more attention to educate the public and in fact, trying to increase our volunteer lawyers list. We further believe that our centre has successfully educated the public and has obtained a wider list of volunteer lawyers mainly comprising of young lawyers who are less than a year in practice.

The LAC carried out task by providing legal aid duty opportunities to chambering pupils through the dock brief programme and by its collaborative programme with LAC KL, AWAM, WAO, SIS and NCCC. The LAC has further increased its programmes for chambering pupils through the awareness programmes which has helped the centre attract more young lawyers to serve the LAC Selangor.

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B. STATISTIC

No. 2010 1. Approved Budget RM180,000.00 2. Total Clients 594 3. Total Clients Advice 413 Total Files Opened (New) 163 4. Assigned files opened in the year 2010 117 Unassigned files opened in the year 2010 46 5. Total outgoing files till 2010 (Criminal + Family) 41 + 23 = 64 Total Criminal Cases / (total new criminal cases) 98 6. Assigned files opened in the year 2010 72 Unassigned files opened in the year 2010 26 Total Family & or Civil Cases / (total new family / civil cases) 58 7. Assigned files opened in the year 2010 43 Unassigned files opened in the year 2010 15 Total Syariah Cases / (total new Syariah Cases) 5 8. Assigned files opened in the year 2010 2 Unassigned files opened in the year 2010 3 Total employment-related cases / (total new cases) 2 9. Assigned files opened in the year 2010 - Unassigned files opened in the year 2010 2 10. Total cases involving juveniles / (total new cases) 15 11. Total cases involving women / (total new cases) 36 12. Total of other cases ; Tort 9 Probate/Letter of Administration (advice) - Domestic Violence 10 Housing 6 Passport/Identity Card issues 3 13. Total advice files for 183 14. Total number of volunteer lawyer 195

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C. PROGRAMMES CONDUCTED BY LAC SELANGOR

1. Chambering Pupils Programmes (ORIENTATION)

Intoduction

This programme is intended to provide an insight of what is required and expected from pupils during the 14 days of compulsory Legal Aid duty and to further introduce the various programmes and clinics run by the centre.

Objectives

• To help pupils to understand the responsibilities of lawyers in society and to provide knowledge to the pupils as to the actual world of practice.

• To educate pupils on the responsibilities that lawyers have in providing justice to public in need; and

• To educate pupils on the need to provide their long term commitment to Legal Aid.

Orientation Sessions

Total of four (4) orientation sessions were held and approximately 200 pupils were trained by LAC Selangor for the year 2010. The orientation sessions are intended to provide the necessary knowledge to the pupils as a preparation for them before starting the compulsory 14 days legal aid duty.

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2. Law Awareness Programmes

(a) , Hulu Selangor (23 rd July 2010)

This programme was conducted by Kaneshrau on request by the local community of Kalumpang. The programme was intended to provide awareness to the public on the existence of the Legal Aid Centre whose objective is to provide free legal service to the needy. The programme started at 8.30am and ended at 1.00pm with a total number of 29 participants including 15 chambering pupils.

The half day programme started with chambering pupils and volunteer lawyers carrying out a walk-about session by visiting the residents in their homes and distributing pamphlets to them and to provide firsthand advice upon request from the residence. There were about four lawyers stationed at the tent to provide advice to the walk-in resident.

The issues adviced upon comprised mostly on family matters, criminal matters, property issues and issues pertaining to birth certificate registration. We managed to distribute many pamphlets which covered the various legal and human rights issues.

There was a sharing session held after the programme to enable the chambering pupils to share their experience wherein many were happy that LAC has provided them the opportunity to see the other side to our city life. The participants have gained a lot of knowledge including seeing the need to promote the existence of legal aid on a wider scale so as to enable the society at large to benefit from it.

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(b) St Anne’s Church, (1 st August, 2010)

This programme was conducted in conjunction with St Anne’s Feast celebration. This is an annual programme done by the LAC Selangor to provide legal services to the Christian community of various backgrounds. A total of 20 participants including 10 chambering pupils volunteered for this programme. Many pamphlets on various issues including family, criminal and human rights issues were distributed to those who attended church on the said day. The programme was successful as there were about 10 walk-in clients who approached us at the end of the programme.

(c) Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan , (15 th October, 2010)

The LAC conducted a law awareness programme at the request of Tamil Society of Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan Jugra, Banting. This programme was intended to provide legal knowledge in the area of criminal law to the students studying in forms 1 and 2.

The school approached the Legal Aid Centre to educate its students who are involved in many criminal activities and constantly arrested by the local police. The programme was intended to cover various aspects of criminal law including educating the students of the effects of an arrest by police.

This programme was conducted by four volunteer lawyers who practice criminal law. The students and teachers from the school were very thankful and appreciated our effort to educate them. The Tamil society head teacher has conveyed her interest in conducting

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a similar programme for students from forms 3 to 5 in near the future.

(d) Kota Kemuning (28 th November,2010)

This programme was conducted with the help of our volunteer lawyers and chambering pupils. This programme started at 8.30am and ended at 4.30pm. The LAC managed to distributed pamphlets to residents of Kota Kemuning especially on land and syariah issues. The LACs had about 15 walk-in clients as a result of the said programme.

(e) The next programme will be held in Sabak Bernam which is scheduled to be conducted at the end of January 2011.

It is clear from the said activities that this year has been a busy year for us at the LAC Selangor. The LAC Selangor has managed to attract more volunteer lawyers to join us to promote the centre as well as to provide justice to society at large. We are aspired for the following in the years to come:-

• To promote LAC Selangor in a wider scale especially to public from the urban areas;

• To conduct more legal awareness programmes throughout Selangor as a means of providing justice; and

• To conduct more trainings and programmes for chambering pupils to encourage them to join the Legal Aid centre at the end of the 14 days duty.

Weaknesses:

• Time-consuming and lack of human resource support and • Follow-up sessions

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In conclusion, I would like to take this opportunity to convey my deepest thanks and gratitude to the LAC staff, all my sub-committee members for 2010 for their co-operation and the volunteer lawyers for their assistance. The committee hopes its members and the younger lawyers will continue to show their commitment and dedication during the years to come.

Report submitted by:-

Komathi Arunasalam Chairperson, Legal Aid Centre Selangor

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