June 22, 2007	Friday	Jamadi-us-Sani 06, 1428

LAHORE, June 21: The Punjab government is going to open a new avenue to jobs for lawyers by notifying the establishment of the Punjab Public Defenders Service in near future.

The service was announced through an ordinance which was promulgated on June 8. Its bill was introduced in the provincial assembly for adoption on June 12.

Official sources said on Thursday the next step towards raising the team of lawyers who would provide free legal assistance to the indigent was the notification of the service that would be issued soon.

According to them, the service was being created under the law department which previously used to head the prosecution wing of the provincial government. At present, a separate department is running an independent prosecution service created under access to justice programme.

Sources said the new service would be headed by chief public defender. It would have an additional chief public defender, district public defenders and public defenders. They all would be recruited on a contract according to the contract recruitment policy of the provincial government.

A lawyer having 10-year high court practice would be taken as the chief public defender. His deputy would be required to have seven-year high court practice. Those selected as district public defenders should have seven-year practice as lawyers, and public defenders merely two-year practice.

The officers would be recruited by a selection committee to be headed by the provincial law secretary.

The prosecution service handles only the criminal cases whereas the defenders service would examine both the criminal and civil cases.

According to the law, anyone could submit an application to the law department, the chief public defender or the district public defenders for seeking free legal assistance.

These officers concerned would assess the requests and engage lawyers for defending the applicants at the government expense. When asked, the official sources explained that the public defenders would not contest a case being pursued against an applicant by the prosecution department or by any other government department.

They would, in fact, engage lawyers for the applicants on compassionate grounds no matter who was proceeding against them. This was being done in modern states to ensure the right to defend of the people who could not afford to hire lawyers.

At present, they said, the government was bound to provide lawyers to juvenile prisoners or those facing cases carrying death penalty if they could not afford to avail themselves of the opportunity. And under the new arrangement, those facing all kinds of cases would be given lawyers by the government. They would include accused, plaintiff, defenders, respondents or petitioners, they said.