The Committees
The Lawyers Members
The President of the Beirut Bar Association by virtue of article 117 of the Internal Regulations nominates hereby the “Legal Aid Committee” for the year 2016 as follow:
| Name | Position |
|---|---|
| President | |
| Vice president | |
| Rapporteur | |
| Coordinator |
Beirut on 8l2l2016
Antonio El Hachem
The Bar President
Introduction:
A committee which emerged from the Bar Association in Beirut, encompassing a number of lawyers and aiming at defending those prosecuted before the courts and specialized authorities, the latter unable to give the power of attorney to a lawyer due their bad financial situation and constraints. The permanent premises of the Committee are the offices of the Bar Association in Beirut.
The Committee convenes every Friday at 10:30 to study the forwarded applications from the courts in order to screen them for approval or rejection and assigning lawyers to follow the cases.
Procedures:
Regarding the Civil Cases:
It is common knowledge that concerning the civil cases and prior to submission of an application to the Bar Association for assigning a lawyer, a summon to the first instance court is undertaken within the area of residence of the suitor and subsequent to the presentation of all the documents; the court issues its decision to provide juridical aid for those in need, accordingly the court decision is presented to the aid committee at the Bar Association in order to assign a specialized lawyer for the case.
Regarding the Penal Cases:
However the Penal cases emanate usually from two sources:
The Court handling the conflict namely :
- Criminal Court
- Justice Council
- The Appellate Court of Offences
- Individual Penal Judge
- Investigation Judge
The Prison Officer where the accused is present (personal request).
In the cases where the application is referred from the relevant court, the accused would have stood before the court and announced the inability to assign a lawyer.
The relevant court processing the case would then forward a letter to the Bar Association requesting the allocation of a defense lawyer for the accused.
However and when the request is forwarded directly from the arrested, the accused would be still arrested in prison and is unable to assign a lawyer and consequently would present personally an Exemplary Letter to the Bar Association through the prison officer aiming at assigning a lawyer who would mobilize his or her legal file. The process is in contrast to the first source.