OPPOSITION spokesperson on justice Zuleika Jess has called for more legal aid resources to be shifted from criminal to civil matters to benefit a large number of poor Jamaicans.

The call was made on Wednesday during her maiden contribution to the sectoral debate in the House of Representatives.

“Too many ordinary Jamaicans are being completely locked out of the courts because this Administration refuses to expand the categories of cases covered by legal aid. The legal aid framework is rigidly structured to primarily cover criminal matters,” said Jess.

She argued that the data proves conclusively that the vast majority of citizens requesting legal aid are begging for help with civil matters over criminal matters.

“According to the Legal Aid Council, 90 per cent of legal requests received from members of the public are for civil matters, particularly divorces tied to incidents of domestic abuse,” Jess as she argued that access to justice cannot be a half-measure.

“When a Government limits legal aid to a narrow band of cases it effectively closes the doors of the court to the poor. We see the consequences every single day in our courts: Unrepresented litigants struggling to understand complex legal rules, overwhelmed judges trying to balance the scales, and ultimately, a breakdown of public trust in the rule of law,” lamented the Opposition spokesperson.

She referenced the Chief Justice’s Civil Division Statistics Report which states that more than 16,000 new civil cases are filed in parish courts every year.

“The said report shows that in up to 70 per cent of these civil disputes, at least one party is completely unrepresented by counsel — forced to face a judge completely on their own while their livelihoods hang in the balance. It is a David versus Goliath battle where the State refuses to hand David not even a sling, much less a stone,” added Jess.

The first-term Member of Parliament for St Elizabeth North Eastern argued that what makes this failure worse is that it has absolutely nothing to do with a lack of resources.

“Just recently, during the Standing Finance Committee right here at Gordon House, the Minister of Justice [Delroy Chuck] openly admitted on the record that the money is there. He proudly declared that the ministry satisfied all claims by attorneys and has the fiscal space. Therefore, let us call this what it really is — a total lack of political will and complete indifference to the plight of the poor. The money is sitting in the treasury. The budget has the space.

“The minister has publicly confessed that the capital exists, yet this Administration chooses to let those funds sit idle while poor Jamaicans are crushed by legal fees or forced to forfeit their rights because they cannot afford an attorney,” said Jess.

She charged that this is a betrayal of the pledge to protect the poor and vulnerable, declaring, “You cannot claim to run a fair society when justice is only accessible to those who can afford it. It is an insult to the intelligence of the Jamaican people for the minister to boast about a surplus of funds while ignoring the 90 per cent of applicants who are begging for legal aid for civil matters.”

According to Jess, “The people do not want any more excuses. We do not want public-relations mobile units that can only give legal advice but leave citizens defenceless when a civil trial actually starts. We demand that the Government stop hoarding these resources, listen to the data from its own agencies, and immediately amend the regulations to expand legal aid categories to cover civil matters.

“Stop locking the poor out of justice. I put it to you, Madam Speaker, that this is anything but equal rights and justice.”