[ad_1]
Okay but not quite
The Ministry of Justice has announced that the basic amount used to calculate the fees for state-guaranteed legal aid lawyers (VGTP) will increase from € 16 to € 18.
“By enhancing state-guaranteed legal aid, our goal is to provide legal services to those who need it most: low-income, but also high-quality people. Therefore, by increasing the hourly rate, we hope to attract as many better lawyers and mediators as possible, “says the Minister of Justice. Elvinas Jankevičius. – During this period, the rates are increased for the third time “.
E. Jankevičius says that by increasing the rate, he seeks to provide legal assistance to low-income people.
President of the Council of Lawyers prof. Ignas Vėgėlė assessed the price increase as a good trend, but noted that we are in the middle of the average for Latvia and Estonia. In Estonia, the basic hourly rate for a VGTP lawyer is set at € 50, in Latvia it depends on the category of the case, but is set at € 30- € 40.
“If we take the average of these countries, 40 euros, we are still very far from that. Not to mention the comparison with other EU countries, where the analogous remuneration is significantly higher than the remuneration of Estonia. As a result, the state faces a shortage of lawyers who provide VGTP services. They tend to have a very heavy workload, which affects the quality of services, “notes IV notesgėlė.
According to the president of the Bar Association, the current workload of VGTP lawyers is particularly high: on average, one of them receives 20 new criminal cases or 12-15 civil cases every month. There are currently 550 attorneys providing VGTP services. Of these, only 50 are attorneys providing regular secondary legal assistance and 500 when their services are needed.
Therefore, by increasing the hourly rate, we hope to attract as many of the best lawyers and mediators as possible.
Quarantine saved
The report from the Ministry of Justice claims that Lithuania has the largest circle of VGTP recipients compared to other Baltic countries, but lawyers receive lower remuneration for services rendered. In Lithuania, secondary legal assistance is provided in all kinds of cases and, for example, in Latvia, only in civil and exceptional cases, in administrative cases and, by decision of a judge, in other cases. Last year, only in civil and administrative cases, secondary legal aid was granted in 13,206 cases in Lithuania and 1,081 in Latvia.
According to data from the Lithuanian Bar Association, all these 550 lawyers in Lithuania have to serve about 50 thousand people a year. customers. In Estonia, there are 13,000 lawyers who provide secondary legal assistance per year. cases, and in Latvia, even less, only 11 thousand. “The budgets of the VGTP of the countries mentioned are similar, but in Lithuania the number of cases is five times higher, so the budget must be proportionally higher so that the hourly wage is identical or at least similar,” says the prof. I.Vėgėlė.
At the same time, last year, the state debt for the secondary legal aid provided amounted to almost 450 thousand. euros. Agreements have been made to suspend the service. Currently, the Bar Association has received no complaints from attorneys about the state’s indebtedness to attorneys providing secondary assistance.
“The total budget for this year, although it did not increase significantly, a part of the budget was saved during the quarantine, because a large part of the demands were not carried out,” says I.Vėgėlė.
Bureaucracy problems
In 2019, according to the president of the Bar Association, the system of legal assistance guaranteed by the state was fundamental. However, considerable efforts have been made to address criticisms made by lawyers about travel costs and the time required to provide secondary legal assistance, which until now have been incorrectly calculated and paid for.
“In that year we achieved an increase in the basic fee for VGTP lawyers from 13 to 16 euros, and it was found that the travel time was not included in the time allotted to the customer of the service, it was decided to pay it separately. We hear fears from lawyers that sometimes the actual costs are much higher than what a lawyer receives for that travel time, “taught I. Vėgėlė.
Professor I.Vėgėlė emphasized that the fees of Lithuanian lawyers providing state-guaranteed legal assistance remain half as low as in other Baltic countries.
However, other arguments were heard from lawyers: lawyers cannot regulate or control procedural time. Often faced with the complexities of pretrial investigation or litigation, courts know that procedures take a tedious amount of time, sometimes several years.
“If an attorney has limited pay due to the length of these procedures, clients do not get real help. Currently, attorneys are paid for the actual time spent on the procedures. However, we still have to deal with bureaucracy and workload. The workload of lawyers is now very high. Adequate secondary legal aid services “, – stressed I.Vėgėlė.
According to the president of the Bar Association, lawyers have to spend a lot of time preparing reports in order to receive remuneration for their services.
[ad_2]
