Measures in place to end abuse of tribunals' legal aid system, UN watchdog body reports
As the United Nations oversight body reported progress in the efforts by two UN war crimes tribunals to put an end to abuse of the legal aid system, senior officials from the two courts today vowed to take additional measures to deal with the problem.
The Registrars of the UN International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda (< a href="http://www.ictr.org/">ICTR) and the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) said in a joint statement that the courts were "determined to make every effort possible to prevent abuses of the legal aid system of the two Tribunals and ensure the efficient use of the resources appropriated to the Tribunals by the [UN] General Assembly."
The statement by the ICTR's Adama Dieng and the ICTY's Hans Holthuis came after the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) issued a report of its follow-up investigation into allegations that defence lawyers had either been solicited or agreed to share with their indigent clients their legal fees and costs, which are paid by the two tribunals.
In the report, the watchdog body said it was pleased to note that both tribunals have implemented most of the recommendations contained in a previous report and that both have also taken additional proactive steps to prevent abuses of the legal aid system established under their respective statutory authorities.
"Fee-splitting is not an easy practice to eradicate because its possibility involves confidential discussions and arrangements between a defence counsel and his client," said the two Registrars, who were in New York to attend meetings of the Assembly's Administrative and Budgetary (Fifth) Committee to discuss the courts' budgets, as well as their strategy to complete the tribunals' work.
Pointing out that defence teams are not staff members of the tribunals, the two officials noted that they had taken "strong and proactive" measures to reform their legal aid systems and prevent further abuses and other misconduct, including firing a defence lawyer for over billing the court and dismissing a staff member for accepting kick-backs from public defenders in order to process payments quickly.
Some other steps taken by the ICTR include stricter monitoring and limitations on gifts received by detainees and more detailed screening of current and future defence investigators for potential conflicts of interest. The ICTY has also prepared an amendment to the code of conduct for defence counsel explicitly forbidding fee-splitting, which the Rwanda court said it was also considering, and was reviewing the case of a detainee who was found to have bought real estate while claiming to be indigent.