Over 250 detained juveniles get free legal representation

Jul 26, 2017 News, http://www.kaieteurnewsonline....egal-representation/

…as a result of RCC-Legal Aid Clinic partnership

In recognition of the fact that more than 90 percent of the youths in lawful custody were being denied legal representation, the Rights of the Child Commission [RCC] in 2015 partnered with the Guyana Legal Aid Clinic to correct this dilemma.

This move is one that came into being with financial support from the United Nations Children Fund [UNICEF].

Since the partnership commenced, Managing Attorney at Legal Aid Clinic, Ms. Shellon Boyce, said that “we have been able to, on a weekly basis, visit the Sophia Holding Centre and interview those juveniles that are in detention.”

This move, according to Boyce, has allowed for each child that has passed through the holding facility to receive legal representation. This has, in essence, augmented the Legal Aid representation, since some family members had in the past sought legal representation for youths in detention.

Legal Aid has provided an average of 250 children with legal representation and advice, with the majority of cases being wandering and capital offences. Instrumental to the representation process has been the support forthcoming from the Childcare and Protection Agency’s Probation office, according to Boyce.

This level of support was shared with the media during a press conference held at the Peter Rose Street, Queenstown, Georgetown office of the RCC.

Speaking at that forum, RCC’s Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Amarnauth Panday, spoke of the genesis of the collaboration with the Legal Aid Clinic, which he said was prompted by some revelations uncovered during a RCC-initiated Personal Development and Leadership programme.

The programme was conducted in 2015 with the children resident at the Sophia Juvenile Holding Centre. Previous to this, it was introduced at the New Opportunity Corps.

The programme, according to Panday, was done largely to equip youths in contact with the law with notions of personal development, so that they can return to their respective communities with the capacity to be productive citizens.

“That was the whole objective of the Personal Development and Leadership sessions that we had at the NOC as well as at the Sophia Juvenile Holding Centre,” said Panday.

But it was while engaging the children, during which time they were informed of the rights they are entitled to under the Convention of the Rights of the Child [CRC], Panday said, that “we diagnosed a most flagrant breach. The children domiciled at the Holding Centre, awaiting trial in the courts of Guyana, were denied access to Article 40 of the CRC, that is, the access to legal representation.”

“This is a serious violation of child rights that was diagnosed by the RCC.

Since then using this information that over 90 percent of the children at the Holding Centre were denied or were not even informed that they had this right to legal representation, we have since engaged the various stakeholders in terms of remedying this situation,” Panday divulged.

Part of its intervention has included engaging the Guyana Police Force so that police ranks, in arresting children who are suspected to have violated the laws of Guyana, would be informed that they have the right to legal representation.

“This is one of the most important things that we have engaged police in all of the divisions of Guyana, informing them that this is a fundamental right of the child – to receive legal representation when they come into contact with law,” the RCC CEO disclosed.

The process has been taken even further with the RCC engaging relevant Ministers of Government and other critical stakeholders with a view of ensuring that this “breach” could be permanently remedied.

In the interim though, the partnership between the Guyana Legal Aid has been filling the gap. “We have been able to secure some funding [from UNICEF] so that the lawyers attached to the Guyana Legal Aid Clinic can visit, regularly, the Sophia Juvenile Holding Centre, the New Opportunity Corps and the Timehri Prison, where young offenders, many of them under the age of 18 [are held], to provide legal representation,” Panday informed.

Panday underscored yesterday that since the partnership between RCC and the Legal Aid Clinic is a finite one – as it will come to an end once the UNICEF funding ceases – the rights of the youths in detention could once again be in jeopardy. Once funding ends, Panday noted “we will pretty much go back to the same situation, where the children of Guyana coming into contact with the law will be once again be denied a fundamental right of the child as enshrined in the CRC.”

“This is an issue that requires greater public awareness, debate and discussion, so that we can come up with a permanent solution. Whether we engage the Minister of Public Security or the Attorney General to advocate for a Public Defenders’ office…all of these things, I think, should be in the public domain, and we should be having a public discussion on how we move forward,” said Panday.

Added to this, the RCC has proposed the possibility of the subvention of the Guyana Legal Clinic being increased to sustain the support currently being offered.