​Annual allowance for legal aid: the lawyers demand a large sum of money from President Diomaye 

  This Thursday, during his address to the solemn hearing on the admission of lawyers to the courts and tribunals, Mr Mamadou Seck told the President of the Republic, Mr Bassirou Diomaye Diakhar Faye, about the problems they are facing. Mr. President of the Republic, the annual allocation to judicial assistance of an amount of 83. 000 FCFA has not been paid for several years, leaving a surplus of more than three billion (3.000. “We are also faced with the requirements of the new Community rules which require the establishment of a school of lawyers for the preparation of the examination for the CAPA, initial training and continuing training”. Moreover, Mr Seck said he appreciated and welcomed with his colleagues all the efforts made by the State to put at our disposal a hectare of land in Diamniadio and a financial aid of five hundred (500) million CFA francs which represents a quarter of the budget for financing construction. But believe me, it is a real challenge for our Barreau to find additional financial means, while our concern is, at the same time, to put at the disposal of the litigants, lawyers able to defend them and, above all, to increase our contribution to the employment of young people”, he said… La réponse du Chef de l’État au Barreau du Sénégal. In response to the interpellation by the bâtonnier de l’ordre des avocats du Sénégal, Bassirou Diolaye Diakhar Faye stated that judicial assistance has been provisionally operating until now on the basis of a memorandum of understanding of 7 April 2005 between the Bar and the ministries responsible for justice and the budget. In this connection, a draft law and a draft decree have already been drawn up for a regulation of the modalities of legal aid which, it should be recalled, must benefit both victims and defendants in criminal matters as well as claimants and defendants in civil matters. The fact is that it is applied only in criminal matters and only for the benefit of the persons prosecuted, whereas victims often need legal aid, particularly in civil matters where the procedure is generally more costly than in criminal matters”, he noted.