Legal Aid in Cambodia: Practices, Perceptions and Needs - PRAJ

26Legal Aid in Cambodia: Practices, Perceptions and NeedsA Study based on a National SurveyIn focus group discussions, legal aid providers identified limited resources including limitedIT resources and limited access to relevant legal texts as being obstacles to the properinvestigation of client cases, proper advice to clients, and the proper representation of clientsin court. Figure 13 gives details.Figure 13: Main problems facing legal aid providersLack of public knowledgeLack of moneyLack of transportationLocal authorities don't cooperate and are corruptLaw staff is still poorly qualifiedLack of materials and technologyMost people still don't know about LASome people/ officials don't respect the lawDifficulty to explain law and LAFormal system is too slow9%7%5%2%22%22%20%20%52%49%Survey respondents were also asked to suggest effective ways of incorporating legal aidservices into the justice system. None of the answers given proposed making legal aiddelivery part of the mechanisms of government. Instead a large number proposed improvinglinkages between legal aid providers and government, particularly local government. It wasalso suggested that legal aid professionals participate in court investigations. Figure 14 givesdetails.Figure 14: How legal aid can be incorporated into justice delivery systemsCooperation with local authorities64%More liaising with government52%Investigate serious cases jointly with judge25%Work on cases without thinking about political trends9%Insert legal aid knowledge into school programs7%Don't know6%When asked for suggestions on how to improve legal aid services, respondents placed apremium on training legal aid providers at the local level. Other responses centered onincreasing the number of people available to provide legal aid. Figure 15 gives details. Infocus groups discussions and individual interviews legal aid professionals complained aboutlarge case loads and limited support services, further highlighting the human resource issuesfaced by existing legal aid NGOs.