Club Online Zoom Event: The Legal Access Gap in Hong Kong
Date: 31 Mar 2022 08:00 PM — 09:00 PM | Venue:
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| ONLINE ZOOM EVENT The Legal Access Gap in Hong Kong |
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| Without legal knowledge or financial means, the marginalised people in Hong Kong are vulnerable when faced with legal matters. The Legal Aid Department states that its legal aid provisions are neither free nor guaranteed. The application has been criticised as unintelligible to the average lay person with no legal background. In the past, people could go to district councilors’ offices to get free legal consultations but now there are only a few left. Has the need for legal support spiked during the Covid pandemic? How big is the legal access gap? What can be done to provide adequate legal support to the grassroots population? Moderated by FCC President Keith Richburg. | |||||||||||||||
| Panelists include: | |||||||||||||||
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Kay McArdle is the Founder and Director of Equal Justice Limited, a community impact initiative with a mission to close Hong Kong’s justice poverty gap by working with 120 lawyers and 50 NGOs to help disadvantaged people anticipate, prevent and solve their legal problems for free. She is a Hong Kong- and England & Wales- qualified lawyer and mediator by background. For her access to justice and policy work, she won a Macquarie David Clarke Social Innovation Fellowship and a scholarship to attend a Harvard NGO leadership course. She is a published author on access to justice, and an experienced writer of public policy consultation papers. Kay was latterly the first CEO of Hong Kong NGO PathFinders and Board Chair of The Women’s Foundation. She is an Advisor to the Child Development Centre.
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 Patricia Ho is the Founder of Hong Kong Dignity Institute, Founding and Managing Partner of Patricia Ho & Associates, and Principal Lecturer of the Faculty of Law at the University of Hong Kong. Much of her work involves defending the rights of minority groups in Hong Kong by way of seeking advancements and developments of government policies and laws through strategic litigation. Patricia also provides legal and strategic advice to a number of NGOs in Hong Kong, and works with both local and international bodies to advocate for the rights of marginalised groups, including refugees, asylum seekers, victims of human trafficking, persons with disabilities, transgender persons and sex workers.
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 Alan Lau is the Co-founder & Director of Street Law HK, a social enterprise focusing on empowering the communities by localising, simplifying and gamifying legal education through fostering cross-sector collaboration. He holds a double degree in political and law from the University of Hong Kong and is a Hong Kong qualified solicitor. He is currently working in the non-profit field, specialising in youth engagement and development.
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