NationStates Jolt Archive

The proposal reads:

In many countries, the poor have no adequate means of legal counsel. They are forced to defend themselves against accusations they don't understand, and subsequently are unjustly imprisoned. Even those countries with constitutional rights to counsel sometimes cannot afford to pay public defenders' salaries.

THEREFORE...

The U.N. resolves to create an International Union of Public Defenders (to be given a name such as Avocats San Frontiers or something to that effect). This will be a multinational organization of lawyers willing to defend those who cannot afford representation in whatever countries they are certified in. Although this measure will be costly, no one can put a price on justice. U.N. members will evenly share the costs of this measure.

Please help! Our citizens will pay the price if you don't!

Who is going to train these defenders? And will they be certified in more than one country? Because (obviously) the legal system of each member nation is going to be different from the others.

For example we have the occasional black magic trial in TilEnca, and sometimes trials that would seem stranger than that to most people. But the people who conduct these trials are well trained, and generally good at what they do, but most of call can understand it.

Or is this a proposal to set up a public defenders office that will work pro-bono in each Nation?

Agreed, it would be better to create local public defender offices (including even subsets of nations, for different municipalities), as outside lawyers would not understand many particulars of local jurisprudence, or particulars of procedural order.

And it would be handy to ensure a check to prevent the tactic, from some nations already employing Public Defenders, from paying them more for losing a case.

If ever there were a proposal that had a valid claim on the National Sovereignty argument, this is it. In this case, an International Union just makes no sense. Nation law is complicated enough for one country - does this Union need to be expert in case law in 38,429 member nations?

Naw baby, naw.

Yes, more or less this proposal would create an entire office of incompitent lawyers, who would provide bad legal services to their poor clients all over the planet.... Oh yes... very effective... not!