The Legal Aid Foundation is Open for Business!

The Legal Aid Foundation, along with its five branch offices in Taipei, Taichung, Tainan, Kaohsiung, and Hualien, officially commenced operations yesterday (the 1st). This is not only a significant milestone in safeguarding human rights through our judiciary, but also good news directly related to the vital rights and interests of the public!

What is legal aid? What does the Legal Aid Foundation do? Simply put, according to the Legal Aid Act, legal aid is a system where the state finances lawyers to help impoverished and disadvantaged individuals fight lawsuits or handle legal issues. The Legal Aid Foundation and its branches are government-funded, privately-managed institutions established pursuant to the Legal Aid Act, practically responsible for providing legal aid services.

In real life, we can easily observe instances where impoverished and disadvantaged citizens are bullied or mistreated—for example: workers wrongfully dismissed by malicious employers, discriminated indigenous peoples or foreign spouses, persons with disabilities who cannot enjoy fair working conditions, or women and children suffering from domestic violence, and so on. If these individuals cannot afford a lawyer and lack the means to litigate on their own, with nowhere to turn for help, those in minor situations might simply go home and cry into their blankets, while those in severe cases may even suffer from depression and commit suicide, bringing even greater harm to their families and society! Therefore, to prevent such tragedies, coupled with the increasing complexity of modern legal disputes and the growing refinement and specialization of litigation systems, how to ensure that people do not suffer impaired substantive equality before the law due to economic disadvantage has become a judicial issue that modern democratic states governed by the rule of law must confront.

Furthermore, for citizens who meet the eligibility criteria set by the Legal Aid Foundation, the Foundation's branches can not only fund lawyers to represent them in court, draft legal documents, and mediate legal disputes, but also apply to the court for litigation relief on their behalf (Article 62 of the Legal Aid Act), or even issue guarantees through the branch to substitute for security deposits for provisional attachments and provisional injunctions (Article 65 of the Legal Aid Act). Such measures can be described as very beneficial for economically disadvantaged litigants.

However, laws cannot enforce themselves, and a sound system especially requires the cooperation and efforts of many people. Therefore, the Legal Aid Act explicitly stipulates that when lawyers are selected or appointed to provide legal aid, they shall not refuse without justifiable reason; otherwise, they shall be deemed in violation of attorney ethics norms, and in serious cases, subject to disciplinary action (Article 27). Similarly, recognizing that state resources are limited and must be properly utilized, the Legal Aid Act also specifies that if the value of property acquired by a legal aid recipient through legal aid exceeds the standards set by the Legal Aid Foundation, the branch may request them to bear a so-called contribution fee (Article 33). Notably, in accordance with Article 35 of明定 the Legal Aid Act, remuneration and necessary expenses disbursed by the branch for legal aid cases shall be deemed part of the litigation costs and may be claimed from the losing opposing party. In other words, this also means one should not bully impoverished and disadvantaged "hardworking people," otherwise the cost of losing a lawsuit will be at least tens of thousands of NT dollars more than what an ordinary person would pay!

Currently, as the Legal Aid Foundation is limited by having only just over 800 lawyers who have voluntarily signed up to participate in legal aid, and with the budget allocated annually by the Judicial Yuan being limited, matters such as simple legal consultations, defense in criminal retrials and extraordinary appeals, civil arbitration, bankruptcy, small claims litigation, retrials, election litigation, and administrative litigation are, in principle, outside the scope of aid. Therefore, the author sincerely calls on more fellow lawyers to join the ranks of legal aid, and also hopes that civil society groups and kind-hearted individuals will actively donate to the Legal Aid Foundation. This will allow the current legal aid system to more comprehensively safeguard the rights to litigation and equality of economically disadvantaged persons, realize judicial humanization, and accelerate the realization of an idealistic fair society. At the same time, we also expect the pioneers and friends of the Legal Aid Foundation to live up to their self-imposed standards of "professionalism, efficiency, and approachability," and to earn broader support and recognition from the ruling and opposition parties as well as all sectors of society through their service achievements.

※ Published in: China Times