The Legal Aid Commission should serve as an institution aligned to modern times.
Attorney General Aiyaz Sayed Khaiyum ,while closing the 2016 Legal Aid Training seminar said the Commissions budget allocation puts them in a good position to do so.
“Legal Aid now of course has received a exponential growth in terms of the budget,an allocation now in access of over 5 million dollars, and that is quite a large amount and the reason why we’ve allocated these funds is essentially to ensure that your organisation is able to provide the services that we require to serve given the fact that its mandatory now under our Constitution and secondly that we need to be able too make the Legal Aid Commission a lot more relevant to modern day Fiji.”
While touching on professional integrity the Attorney General revealed that an organisation will be investigated by FICAC.
“Recently before I went on leave there’s one particular organisation where we found there are a number of anomalies in the manner in which for example disbursements were made,the manner in which people made claims,the manner in which for example people were given access to various acting appointments,they weren’t done properly,procedures and processes weren’t followed and that has now been reported to FICAC.”
He reiterated to those of the legal profession not to be dishonorable while doing their work.
“Whether you calling expressions of interest,whether you calling for tenders,whether you’re getting free quotations,whether the way you are allocated files whatever the case maybe it is very critical that you follow the processes, it is very critical that you follow the standing orders and procedures,this is very critical”
The 2016 Legal Aid National Corporate Staff Training seminar was held over the past two days at the Intercontinental Fiji Golf and Spa Resort at Natadola.