LAHORE, July 27: The Punjab government has planned to recruit public defenders by the end of the next month to run the country’s first-ever public defender service created under an ordinance to provide free legal aid to the poor prisoners.

The service is being created by the human rights wing of the provincial law department.

Official sources informed Dawn on Friday that the rules of business had already been amended to declare the service an attached entity of the law department which had started framing service rules of the defenders.

The job was expected to be completed in the next 15 days after which recruitment of defenders would start, they said.

The service, they said, was going to provide another major job opportunity to the lawyers. The recruitments would be made in accordance with the contract recruitment policy of the government, but this would be done purely on merit under a high-level administrative committee.

Officials said the lawyers would not be recruited on a regular basis because of the existing policy. Another reason was that the lawyers intending to join the service would not be satisfied with the salaries of regular government pay scales.

“We are going to offer the intending lawyers a handsome pay package matching their status and experience in the field,” officials said.

They said the government required a public defender for every district and tehsil. The district public defender could also be given more public defenders in big cities to smoothly run the service.

According to the ordinance, the service would be headed by a chief public defender. The eligibility for the post was not less than 10-year experience as an advocate of the high court, a member of the prescribed civil service for a period not less than 15 years and holding a judicial office in Punjab for a period not less than 10 years.

The chief will be assisted by an additional chief public defender to be selected from amongst the lawyers having seven-year experience of working as an advocate of the high court.