Its president, Steven Thiru, said the matter must be dealt with in the interest of needy members of the public who relied on the National Legal Aid Foundation (YBGK) for access to justice.
He said lawyers who participated in the scheme had already discharged their legal duties.
“The YBGK success story should not and cannot be derailed by financial impediments caused by administrative delays,” he said at the opening of the International Malaysian Law Conference here today.
Steven said he welcomed the assurance by Attorney-General Mohamed Apandi Ali of his commitment towards the continued progress of the scheme and his pledge to resolve the backlog in payments to lawyers.
He said the Bar Council had been working with the YBGK administration to resolve the matter.
“We have also kept the AG (who is the YBGK board chairman) and the minister in charge of law notified of the delayed payments and have sought their assistance to resolve this matter.”
Last week, FMT reported that the government-initiated legal aid scheme for the poor and needy had hit a snag as lawyers were reluctant to represent clients.
The reason given was that the government had been slow in settling payments for services rendered since early this year.
FMT understands that the total amount owed to lawyers in the peninsula, between January and August, was about RM3.4 million.
Steven, who is YBGK deputy chairman, said that despite these outstanding payments, lawyers have continued to provide legal services.
“The commitment and the spirit of volunteerism of our YBGK lawyers are commendable and we look forward to more lawyers stepping up to the plate.”
YBGK is a joint enterprise between the government and the three Bars of Malaysia – the Malaysian Bar, Sabah Law Association and the Advocates’ Association of Sarawak. It commenced operations in 2012.
Steven said the three Bars have to date trained a pool of 1,804 lawyers, who were paid a nominal fee for handling YBGK files.
Between April 2012 and December 2015, YBGK lawyers handled 535,986 cases.
Apandi also expressed concern over the non-payment as that would deny the poor and needy citizens the right to a fair trial.