The establishment of the Centre for Legal Aid addresses access to one fundamental rights of the citizen that embodies the equality before law – meaning that all humans are equal in law.
The court exists to provide access to justice and to rights for people who seek justice. This is the reason why legal aid exists. The court provides access to communities and other groups who cannot afford.
The Supreme Court provides such service through the working groups to strengthen disbaility groups by advocating the Supreme Court Regulation No. 76 Year 2021. This regulation then feeds into policies. Each Directorate Generals then issue policies – i.e. decision letter – to allow access to justice for people with disability. There is also a working group for women and children established since 2016 which have more complete members. This working group monitors policies, as explained by Sudharmawatiningsih, the junior law clerk for special crimes at the Supreme Court during a module launch at the paralegal training and public discussion on strengthening the perspective for legal aid for people with disability by Sigab Indonesia, on Monday (10/6).
The working groups result in, for example, the Supreme Court Regulation No. 1 Year 2014 on Standard for Legal Services to the Poor Communities at the Court, and the Supreme Court Regulation No. 03 Year 2017 on Standard for Women Facing Legal Cases. In addition, the Supreme Court Regulation on Standard re. Disability is now open for public review.
Then what happens to the Centre for Legal Aid services? This relates to the Supreme Court Regulation No. 17 Year 2014 articulates that judges must establish the presence of legal accompaniment when dealing witrh perpetrators and victims with disability. This should be available from the non-litigation stage. What is new about the legal accompaniment is that it refers to paralegals. One of the challengte is who is the paralegal or what is the status of the paralegal during the court proceeding?
What would be the future of paralegals as legal accompaniment. Legal accompaniment is present before trial begins. When the court is in session, it should be clear whether paralegals serve as accompaniment, as lawyer or as a trusted person to accompany the victims.
With regards to the Supreme Court policy, the Supreme Court Regulation No. 7 Year 2022 articulates thyat the court is already electronically-based. This means the court is conducted electronically, with all supports system electronically prepared and when there are documents not yet available electronically, then such documents should be scanned and made electronically available. This indicates that the court procedure, whether first-level, second-level, appeal or state administrative court at the Supreme Court are all electronically-based. This development in electronically-based court system at the first-level has proceeded for a while, but the administrative court and appeal court is awaiting its launch by the head of the Supreme Court. On the basis of the appeal Act dated 1 May, court documents would be sent electronically and not hard copy would be available. This is a new policy at the Supreme Court whose electornically-based proceeding at the appeal level is being publicly disseminated. Hence, all legal proceeding after 2 May would use this electronically-based mechanism, and no longer relying on hard compies of documents to be sent.
What would be access to poor people? What kinds of services? Access includes Centre for Legal Aid for first-level court, which encompasses services to free legal costs. Second, it includes sessions outside of the court. The third is the Centre for Legal Aid in court. All this is in first-level court.
When one sees the centre for legal aid in the perspective of the Supreme Court Regulation No. 1 Year 2014, one can see the objective of legal aid in court is to take the financial burden off poor communities. The other objective is to improve access to justice for people who can hardly afford to access the court building due to financial limitation, disability and geographical distance. Then, what is a legal services beyond the court. It provides communities who cannot afford legal consultation to get information about consultation, advice and preparation of documents before they face the court. It is not just about how they deal with the court proceeding, but also how the justice seekers, i.e. victims, prepare documents, petition, lawsuit, and defence – i.e. what kind of consultation is availble.
The Centre is also tasked with nicreasing people’s awareness about the respect, protection of rights and duties, and rights and key services for justice seekers. The services are intended to ensure that all citizens, regardless of economic status, have equal access to justice. How is meant by equal access to justice? It means that it is avaibale to all, including people with disability, women with disability and poor people, in order to ensure that every person gets access and that every person is equal before the law. (Ast)
