Demand for equality of access to legal aid grows

Date: 04/09/1997

By Simon Coss

CIVIL liberties campaigners are calling for all EU citizens to be assured the right to paid legal representation if they find themselves in trouble abroad.

But European Commission plans to ensure that Union nationals have access to legal aid anywhere within the EU appear to have been put on the back burner.

Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner Anita Gradin promised as long ago as last December that she would put forward a plan on EU-wide legal aid. “Legal systems should become more accessible. I therefore intend to take an initiative concerning legal aid in an EU perspective,” she told MEPs.

But officials in the institution's justice and home affairs task force claim they simply do not have the staff or resources to come up with any concrete proposals at the moment. “We hope to have something out in the first half of next year, but it is a question of priorities. If we had more staff, we could do more,” said one.

Meanwhile, the pressure group Fair Trials Abroad (FTA) is keeping up the pressure on the Union to act. It says that in many countries it is extremely difficult to obtain free legal advice and some Union citizens have faced problems because they did not have enough money to pay for a lawyer.

“Many of these countries do not have adequate legal aid. The European Union could look into setting up a fund to pay for this. We are talking about pretty basic human rights here,” said FTA head Stephen Jakobi.

According to Jakobi, one of the major problems faced by EU citizens is that the principle - set out in the Maastricht Treaty - that nationals of one member state are entitled to assistance from the embassies and consulates of all other Union countries is not working in practice.

He claims that, in reality, citizens from the richer, more influential member states, such as France, the UK and Germany, tend to receive a better service than those from smaller, poorer neighbours such as Greece and Portugal.

“In some countries, the heavyweights do well while the lightweights lose out,” he argued.

Campaigners concede that ensuring access to legal advice alone will not solve all the problems faced by EU citizens who find themselves in hot water in third countries.

FTA argues that one of the biggest headaches is the time some local authorities can take to inform consulates that they have arrested an EU national. Jakobi says that in recent years particular problems have been experienced by people detained in Morocco - which has the largest concentration of EU prisoners outside of the USA - Brazil and Saudi Arabia.

He says the only way to really tackle such dilemmas is to ensure that the Union consular officials on the ground work together on the issue.

“There should be collective action to protect the rights of EU citizens. If there are countries which are very slack in telling consulates that they have prisoners, the local EU representatives should point out that they are in breach of international law,” he argued.