Kreetika Kumar 
Minister for Lands Filimoni Vosarogo has supported the recommendation by the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence to have a fair pay gauge for Legal Aid Commission lawyers.
While contributing to the debate on the Consolidated Review Report of the Legal Aid Commission 2018 to 2023 Annual Reports, Vosarogo believes that they must also be paid commensurately with the workload they carry.
Vosarogo says that some lawyers at the Legal Aid Commission are handling over a hundred files in a given calendar year.
He adds that figure is worrying.
“It is worrying for a couple of reasons, I probably think it’s worth the few minutes that I have to identify them. You are quite likely to have, with a lawyer that’s handling that amount of caseload, that they will not have quality time on each of those files. They will only have 24 hours in a day. They will not have enough time to take client instructions.”
Vosarogo says that they will not have enough time to do their readings, read up on the disclosures, read up on the court documents.
“They will not have enough time to complete their readings, review the disclosures, or go through the court documents. As a result, they will also lack sufficient time to attend to those cases. Ultimately, the quality of justice we expect to improve from these statutory offices could, unintentionally, be compromised.”
The Minister says that that is one of the biggest issues that he believes has been consistently identified in the report of the Legal Aid Commission.
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