In Netherlands, the delegation worked with representatives of the Ministry of Security and Justice of Netherlands; Netherlands legal aid Council and two organizations directly provide legal aid of Hague City. The delegation was guided by Mr. Krijn de Jonge - Department of Policy and Coordination, General Department of Justice and Law Enforcement, Ministry of Security and Justice; Ms. Marceline Heringa - European and International Affairs Department, Ministry of Security and Justice; Mr. Herman Schilperoort - HR Manager, Legal Aid Council; Jan Pieter Verkennis - Head of Communications, Free Legal Service Provider in Hague City; Mr. Ronald Koelman – Senior Lawyer of Hofrecht Advocaten Law Firm, introducing legal aid system and sharing experience on legal aid activities in Netherlands.
In Finland, the delegation worked with the Ministry of Justice of Finland; Finnish Bar Association and the State Office of Legal Aid in Helsinki. The delegation was also welcome and shared about the experience of legal aid in Finland by Jussi Tikkanen - Attorney General; Ms. Kirta Heine - CTA in charge of Legal aid, Ministry of Justice of Finland; Ms. Minna Melender - Finnish Bar Association Secretary, Suvi Kukkonen - Head of Private Lawyers Group providing legal aid, Finnish Bar Association and Mr. Klas Weckman Legal Aid Attorney - Deputy Helsinki Head of State Office of Legal aid.
In both the Netherlands and Finland, legal aid is the right of citizen stipulated by the Constitution For example, Article 18 of the Dutch Constitution provides: (1) Everyone may be legally represented in a legal and administrative proceeding; (2) Terms concerning the supply of legal aid to persons of limited means shall be laid down by Act of Parliament.” In practice, each state legislature enacts specific laws and legal documents in this field, which stipulate the organization of implementation of legal aid, legal aid providers, legal aid beneficiaries, forms of legal aid, procedures for providing legal aid and funding for legal aid activities. Accordingly, funding for legal aid activities is mainly provided by state budget. In particular, in the Netherlands, the budget for legal aid is based on the number of legal aid cases performed during the year.
The Netherlands and Finland have the same system of legal aid agencies and organizations which are established independently according to the Law but the two countries organize their system in two different models.
In the Netherlands, the legal aid system in the Netherlands has a Legal Aid Board –Council which is an independent agency operating on a budget established by the Dutch Ministry of Security and Justice. The Dutch Legal Aid Council is responsible for managing legal aid and reporting to the Minister of Security and Justice. The Dutch Legal Aid Council establishes, funds and appoints the heads of 30 organizations providing free legal services throughout the Netherlands. The provision of free-of-charge legal aid services in the Netherlands is divided into two levels: (1) initial legal aid which is providing simple legal advice (usually 10-15 minutes/case; no more than 30 minutes) by the staff of the Free Legal Aid Service provided by the State to all individuals who have legal difficulties and need assistance of the State Free Legal Aid Service; (2) legal aid through pre-litigation consultancy and representation before the court contracted between a lawyer to provide legal aid and the Dutch Legal Aid Council.
In Finland, the legal aid system in Finland is fairly similar to the legal aid system in Vietnam, consisting of the management agency attached to the Ministry of Justice and the legal aid-providing organizations of the State, which have the function of receiving requests and directly providing legal aid services. Specifically, the Finnish legal aid system is directly managed by the Ministry of Justice and divided into 06 areas with 23 state legal aid offices and 158 legal aid sites, half of them receive legal aid requests through telephone and the others are where people can come in person to request legal aid. From 2007 to 2016, Finland has dramatically reformed the legal aid system and reduced the organization from 64 legal aid offices and branches of 64 offices down to 23 offices and 158 legal aid points as mentioned.
Instead of maintaining a cumbersome system, Finland has strongly applied information technology in the management of legal aid organizations and operations and successfully in cutting down the organization and apparatus, effectively using the resources for legal aid in the country. In addition, Finnish legal aid beneficiaries can send a request to any of the 23 state legal aid offices as well as legal aid points located at the courts to ask for legal aid service.
Legal aid providers in the two countries are either lawyers or have equivalent standards and conditions to lawyers and there is no model of using legal aid collaborators. For example, in the Netherlands, private lawyers receive legal aid requests and file legal aid applications for the Dutch Legal Aid Council to consider and approve whether such people are eligible to be legal aid beneficiaries and directly provide legal aid when approved by the Council. In Finland, legal aid provider includes state legal aid lawyers and private lawyers who sign contracts to provide legal aid.
In both countries, one of the main conditions for considering a person eligible for legal aid is financial hardship. In particular, the basic criteria for identifying a qualified person for legal aid are the level of income and other assets that he or she has. For example, in the Netherlands, the legal assistance of a single person is less than EUR 26,000 per annum for a person with a family income of less than EUR 36,800 per year and the income can be adjusted. according to each year dependency and inflation rate. Most of the cost of legal aid is paid by the state, however, the legal aid recipient in the Netherlands still has to contribute part of the costs depending on the nature of the case and the level of income, for example For mediation, the contribution of legal aid is EUR 53 per case; For a case involving litigation, the contribution may be up to EUR 849 per case. In Finland, single people earning less than EUR 600 a month get free legal help, single people earning between EUR 600 - EUR 1,300 a month are required to contribute between 20% and 75% of the cost. The fee paid to the lawyer for providing legal aid and administrative costs is 70 EUR / case ... The costs paid by the legal aid beneficiaries are paid directly to the lawyer.
The payment of remuneration to private lawyers providing legal aid in the two countries is also different. In the Netherlands, after the end of the legal aid case, the lawyer sends the documents relating to the case together with documents evidencing the process of working on the Legal Aid Council to propose the payment of felonies. TB provides legal aid for the incident. Remuneration paid to private attorneys is based on fixed rates for each incident as required. Specifically, from EUR 250 (for pre-litigation consultations) to EUR 1,500 (for work in the field of employment), for complicated cases or serious criminal cases, Legal co-financing can be considered and decided at a higher level. Meanwhile, in Finland, remuneration for private lawyers providing legal aid is paid according to the actual number of hours. The current private attorney's fee in Finland is € 110 per hour and the attorney is paid up to 80 hours for a legal aid case for a complicated litigation. It can last more than 80 hours but must be decided by the court on a case-by-case basis.
In addition, the delegation of the Ministry of Justice is also shared good experience in the organization and operation of legal aid such as the management of lawyers involved in legal aid, especially the signing co-implementation of legal aid with private lawyers; information technology system applied in legal aid activities, etc. Various information on organization and legal aid activities of the Netherlands and Finland will be useful practical experiences for Vietnam in the process of developing and amending the Law on Legal Aid (amended).