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| Chapter 5 | ||
| Publicity Programmes | ||
The Department is committed to ensure that no one who qualifies for legal aid is denied access to justice because of lack of means. Every year the Department organizes or participates in various activities to enhance the public's awareness and knowledge of the legal aid services provided by the Department. |
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Promotional Activities 2013 Law Week As in the past, the Department sponsored and participated in the organization of the annual territory-wide event Law Week 2013, which was launched by The Law Society of Hong Kong on 30 November 2013. The Opening Ceremony held at Asia World-Expo was attended by the Honourable Chief Justice Mr Justice Geoffrey Ma; the Secretary for Justice, Mr Rimsky Yuen SC; Legislative Council Member the Honourable Mr Dennis Kwok; the Chairman of Hong Kong Bar Association, Mr Paul Shieh; the President of The Law Society of Hong Kong, Mr Ambrose Lam; the Chairman of Law Week 2013 Organizing Committee, Mr Thomas So and the Director of Legal Aid, Mr Thomas Kwong. Further, the Assistant Principal Legal Aid Counsel (Application & Processing Division), Ms Juliana MK Chan took part in two roller features of a TV drama series as part of the promotional programme of Law Week promoting the service of legal aid especially to victims of traffic and work-related accident. Ms Chan also participated in the shooting of an episode on legal aid service broadcast on Roadshow. |
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| Director of Legal Aid,
Mr Thomas Kwong (second from right) officiated at the Opening Ceremony of Law Week 2013 together with other distinguished guests. |
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Promotion of Legal Aid Services to External Bodies/Organizations In 2013, we met with a number of counterpart organizations from overseas and the Mainland to exchange views on issues of common interest in legal aid work and spoke on the latest development of legal aid in Hong Kong. In October 2013, the Deputy Director of Legal Aid (Policy and Administration), Ms Alice Chung and the Assistant Director of Legal Aid (Policy and Development), Ms Juliana OY Chan received the Director of Research and Policy, Mrs Isma Juliana binti Ishak and the Director of Litigation and Advice (Civil), Ms Aida Fatimah binti Abd. Jabar of the Legal Aid Department of Malaysia and exchanged views on legal aid work in Malaysia and Hong Kong. |
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| In November 2013, the Assistant Director of Legal Aid (Policy and Development), Ms Juliana OY Chan and the Assistant Principal Legal Aid Counsel (Crime), Ms Linda Ng received the Deputy Director of the Creative Administration Division of the Planning & Coordination Bureau, Ministry of Justice of Republic of Korea and his delegation introducing the legal aid system in Hong Kong. | ||
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| In December 2013, the Director of Legal Aid, Mr Thomas Kwong and the Deputy Director of Legal Aid (Policy and Administration), Ms Alice Chung, met with Director of Political Department, Ministry of Justice, Ms Zhang Yanzhen who was accompanied by five senior officials from Mainland China to understand the latest development of legal aid services in Hong Kong. | ||
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| In addition, the Department also received the following delegations/groups in 2013 and they are: |
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| Please visit http://www.lad.gov.hk/eng/wnew/event.html for the details and photos of the events. | ||
Promotion of Legal Aid Services to Legal Practitioners The Department places great importance on working in partnership with the legal profession to deliver quality legal aid services to the public. To enhance the legal profession's understanding and knowledge of our services, the Director of Legal Aid, Mr Thomas Kwong delivered a talk on legal aid reforms at a seminar organized by The LegCo Office of Dennis Kwok, the Legislative Councilor for the Legal Functional Constituency on 8 November 2013. |
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Promotion of Legal Aid Support for Mediation Litigating through the courts can be lengthy and expensive. For this reason the court encourages litigants to attempt mediation to resolve their disputes. Since the implementation of the Civil Justice Reform in 2009, legally aided persons involved in civil proceedings have been given funding support for mediation as an additional means of resolving disputes for which they are given legal aid. On 12 November 2013, the Director of Legal Aid, Mr Thomas Kwong, Deputy Director of Legal Aid (Application and Processing), Mr Chris Chong, Assistant Director of Legal Aid (Policy and Development), Ms Juliana OY Chan and Assistant Director of Legal Aid (Litigation), Ms Sherman Cheung, visited the Financial Dispute Resolution Centre and exchanged views on legal aid services and the promotion of mediation with the Centre's Chief Executive Officer, Ms Sou Chiam and her colleagues. |
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Reaching out to the Community To promote legal aid services among the ethnic minorities, the Assistant Principal Legal Aid Counsel (Legal and Management Support), Mrs Christina Hadiwibawa delivered a talk on the legal aid system in Hong Kong in September 2013 to the staff and volunteers of the HOPE Centre of International Social Service Hong Kong Branch as well as staff of non-government organizations serving the ethnic minorities. |
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| In November 2013, the Assistant Director of Legal Aid (Policy and Development), Ms Juliana OY Chan and Senior Law Clerk II (Special Duty & Research Unit), Ms Josephine Kwok, met with over 180 Form Five students of Baptist Wing Lung Secondary School in Tuen Mun and briefed them the legal aid services provided by the Department and the nature of work undertaken by Legal Aid Counsel and Law Clerks. | ||
Public Information LAD News The Legal Aid Departmental News is published to keep the public informed of the latest developments of services delivered by the Department. It also helps enhance public understanding and awareness of our services. To enhance better understanding of the Department's services, the main article of the 39th issue of LAD News published in June 2013 highlighted some of the common misconceptions about legal aid services with examples of frequently asked questions to facilitate readers' understanding of our services. |
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QR Codes To facilitate public access to our webpage, 40 QR codes for our publications were created in July 2013. QR codes will be included in new issues of existing publications of the Department. |
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Updating of Departmental Leaflets The Department published a series of fact sheets and flowcharts advising the public of the scope of civil litigation relating to personal injuries, employees' compensation, seaman wages and medical negligence claims as well as the steps involved in making an application. Updating of various fact sheets and flowcharts was completed in July 2013. The Department had also published a leaflet to explain the investigative mechanism concerning representations against grant of legal aid on merits and/or means and to address the frequently asked questions. In 2013, the leaflet was updated to explain that to enable the Department to carry out thorough investigation, information provided by representors might have to be disclosed to the aided person concerned so as to give the aided persons an opportunity to explain. Other publications such as the Financial Information Sheet which contained comprehensive information on financial eligibility, contributions payable by an aided person towards the costs of litigation and the Director's First Charge were also revised to reflect changes implemented in 2013. A list of publications of the Department is at Appendix 5. |
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Website The Department regularly updates the contents of its website to provide comprehensive and timely information to the public and legal aid practitioners. In 2013, the Department was granted the Gold Award under the Web Accessibility Recognition Scheme, which was co-organised by the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer and the Equal Opportunities Commission, for attaining the standard of W3C[1] WCAG 2.0[2] Level AA[3] in the website.
[1] World Wide Web Consortium |
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