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1. The Malaysian Bar will open legal aid booths at all courts in Peninsular Malaysia on the first Wednesday of each month. Its President Karen Cheah says the legal aid booths offer pro bono legal assistance and representation to the public.
2. “We are probably the only bar organisation in the world where our own members contribute on a yearly basis, RM100 and we use these funds in order to distribute to all the legal aid centres in the peninsular and those funds will be used for all the disbursements,” she said.
3. “So your filing fees, your travelling, all those things the lawyer has to actually incur when they’re doing the cases for the clients, those will be taken from the subscription.” She said the booth also ensures that impecunious persons receive legal advice and representation.
4. There are now 14 legal aid centres in all states in the peninsular that helped over 124,000 people in the past 10 years. She said it is priceless when people offered help expecting nothing in return, believing it has the potential for great impact, even on future generation
5. “If we assume that professional fees were at a nominal rate of RM1,000 per file, our volunteer members would have provided legal services valued at RM120 million in the last decade. The KL legal aid centre alone assisted over 2,700 foreigners in 2023,” she said.
6. Touching on the background of the legal aid centre, Cheah said the Bar Council started its first centre in 1980 in a small village coffee shop, and later in a wooden shack in the then-fishing village of Bayan Lepas, Penang.
7. She said that, at that point in time, free legal aid and advice were provided to factory workers (mostly single women) in the Free Trade Zone, as well as fishermen and farmers in the vicinity.
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weehingthong 