KINGSTON, Jamaica — Residents of Meadowbrook and its environs in St Andrew are being encouraged to access services that will be provided through the Legal Aid Council (LAC) Mobile Justice Unit, which will visit the area on Saturday (February 8).

The unit will be at the Church of the Transfiguration on Meadowbrook Main from 10:00 am to 1:00 pm, during the church’s scheduled outreach programme, providing free legal consultations on expungement, and family, civil and criminal matters.

The Council’s Executive Director, Hugh Faulkner, said people with family members in police custody will also be able to have lawyers assigned to represent them in court on the matters for which they have been charged.

“There will also be advice and information on succession matters, which would include probate for those who would have died leaving a will, and intestacy for those deceased persons who did not leave a will. Persons can come and get advice, guidance and directives on these matters,” he said.

Faulkner advised that no special documents are required to access the legal services on Saturday, as the Unit will facilitate the necessary paperwork.

“We are bringing documents because, from time to time, people come and they wish [for example] to commence the process of expungement. So rather than directing them to the Ministry of Justice or telling them to download a form, we actually travel with the expungement forms, so that they can go home and begin the process as soon as possible,” the Executive Director said.

He pointed out, however, that if people have documents for which they require legal interpretation or guidance, “they can bring those”.

Faulkner encourages people with legal issues to utilise the services to be offered free of cost by the Unit, to rectify them rather than leaving them unresolved.

“Sometimes persons may not have the fee for consultation with a lawyer, or even to retain a lawyer. So this is an opportunity to have legal questions answered free of cost from an attorney. We find that a legal solution to a matter is often the better outcome than taking the law into our own hands [and] surrendering our rights,” he argued.

—JIS