Legal Aid
There is no publicly funded legal aid system in Jersey, though the States of Jersey may exercise discretion to pay defence legal fees in serious criminal trials and in cases involving children. During their first 15 years of practice, Jersey lawyers are required to participate in a scheme organised by the profession to ensure so far as possible that people without sufficient resources are not prevented from pursing or defending civil and criminal cases in the island's courts. The scheme is administered on behalf by the Bâtonnier (a senior member of the profession). Cases accepted by the Bâtonnier as eligible are allocated to lawyers on the basis of the 'Tour de Rôle' (i.e. according to one's turn). Depending on the litigants' income and assets, lawyers may work pro bono or charge a reasonable fee in accordance with published guidelines. A lawyer assigned a legal aid case may choose to pay another lawyer to handle the case and several firms have established specialist legal aid departments. There have been numerous and long-standing calls for reform of the present system.
Read more about this topic: Jersey Law
Famous quotes containing the words legal and/or aid:
“I have spent all my life under a Communist regime, and I will tell you that a society without any objective legal scale is a terrible one indeed. But a society with no other scale but the legal one is not quite worthy of man either.”
—Alexander Solzhenitsyn (b. 1918)
“The duty of the State toward the citizen is the duty of the servant to its master.... One of the duties of the State is that of caring for those of its citizens who find themselves the victims of such adverse circumstances as makes them unable to obtain even the necessities for mere existence without the aid of others.... To these unfortunate citizens aid must be extended by government—not as a matter of charity but as a matter of social duty.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)