A legal aid defense counsel system (LADCS) will become operational in the district on January 3.
High Court judge and Kerala Legal Services Authority chairperson K. Vinod Chandran will inaugurate the defense counsel mechanism online at 9.30 a.m. on Tuesday.
The LADCS will provide free legal assistance to the accused in custody and the defendants in criminal cases in line with the public defence system.
A team of select lawyers will fight cases for the defendants for free, on the lines of te office of public prosecutors. An office for the LADCS team will function at the District Legal Services Authority (DLSA) building.
The team will comprise a chief defence counsel, two deputy defence counsels, and five assistant defence counsels. They will appear at the district sessions courts and other criminal courts to provide legal aid defense counsel to the needy.
Besides the accused in custody, the legal aid lawyers will appear for eligible persons as per Sections 12 of the legal servies Act such as women, children, differently abled, those belonging to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, and people whose income is below Rs.3 lakh. Assistance will be available from the time of arrest till the trial ends.
Earlier, lawyers were specially assigned to cases. However, as they would have other cases to focus on, need for a more effective legal aid mechanism was felt and the LADCS rolled out by the National Legal Services Authority.
The LADCS lawyers will receive monthly salary and would not handle other cases.
DLSA secretary and sub-judge K. Vidyadharan, Trivandrum Bar Association president Anayara Shaji, and district government pleader Geena Kumari T will speak at the inaugural.
