Establishing an independent legal aid authority in Hong Kong: lessons from overseas jurisdictions

This report is an interview based comparative study of the independence (institutional, operational and financial) of Legal Aid Authorities (LAA) in a range of advanced jurisdictions. It forms part of a larger report to the Hong Kong Legal Aid Services Council (LASC) who have commissioned the project. This part of the project sought, inter alia, to establish "the exact working relationship between the Government and the legal aid bodies and to determine the actual degree of independence of the latter" in each of the jurisdictions. In so doing the report analyses the independence of legal aid authorities with respect to a range of factors: the legal status of the legal aid authorities and their Boards (if any), accountability, staffing, the independence of the process of granting or refusing legal aid, responsibility for legal aid policy, and budgeting and finance.