International Legal Foundation Ltd

Programs: Direct service - afghanistan, west bank, nepal, tunisia, and myanmar: see schedule oin 2003, the ilf established afghanistan's first public defender office, ilf-afghanistan, in kabul with two lawyers. As of the end of 2017, ilf-afghanistan is the largest legal aid provider in the country, having provided legal aid to 45,879 poor accused. In 2017, ilf-afghanistan represented 3,981 accused, including 3,103 men, 103 women, 729 boys and 46 girls. Ilf-afghanistan also operates legal clinics that give law and sharia students the opportunity to gain practical experience by assisting in actual cases. In 2017, ilf-afghanistan's clinical legal education program trained 276 students, including 97 female students, at four universities. Ilf-afghanistan also engages in research and advocacy directed at progressive criminal justice reform. In 2017, ilf-afghanistan pioneered litigation to address: (1) the failure of the state to release defendants after acquittal or sentence completion, (2) the failure of the state to provide conditional release and (3) the widespread violations of the rights of women and girls in the justice system, including unlawful arrests of women charged with so-called moral crimes, such as running away, and forced virginity exams. In october 2017, after years of negotiations and as a direct result of the ilf's contributions to a national legal aid assessment and roadmap, the afghan ministry of justice asked the ilf for assistance in reforming the legal aid system. Ilf-west bank handled 361 cases in 2017, down from 1,099 cases in 2016. The sharp decline was due to orders from the palestinian bar association (pba) that severely restricted and then outright prohibited the provision of legal aid. The ilf led the challenge against the pba order, filing a lawsuit asserting that the pba lacks the authority to issue the order and that the order violates palestinian and international law. In october 2017, ilf-west bank celebrated a significant victory, when as a result of this lawsuit, the pba withdrew their order. Ilf-west bank represented 357 males, six females and 148 juveniles. There were 457 bail motions filed with 106 granted, 80 acquittals and 56 dismissals. Ilf-west bank also pursued mediation in six cases. In 2017, ilf-west bank partnered with local universities to provide training to 34 defense lawyers on quality defense practices. Ilf-west bank also worked with arab american university to open the school's first legal aid clinic, based largely on the structure of ilf-west bank's well-established clinical legal education program for local law students. Established by the ilf in 2008, ilf-nepal provided criminal defense services to indigent accused in nepal, both in formal judicial courts and in quasi-judicial bodies. On april 1, 2017, the public defender society of nepal (pds-nepal) spun off from ilf-nepal and became the first nepal public defender office, demonstrating the success of the ilf's approach to building sustainable, locally-run, quality, effective legal aid programs. In 2017, ilf-nepal (pds-nepal as of april 2017) represented 1,359 indigent clients from its five offices, including 1,212 men, 83 women and 64 boys. Ilf-nepal/pds-nepal participated in 570 bail hearings during 2017, and bail was set in 56% of these cases, 11% of cases were decided during the jail/bail hearing, 14% of ilf-nepal's/pds-nepal's clients were released on general release, while only 18% of clients were detained pending trial. Moreover, 24 habeas corpus writs were filed in 2017, of which four were granted. In january 2017, ilf-nepal won a landmark decision in the supreme court involving the fundamental right of accused persons to receive pre-trial access to the accusations and evidence that exist against them. Also in 2017, ilf-nepal/pds-nepal continued its legal efforts to end discriminatory arrests and prosecutions and delivered training on these and other issues, including early access to representation, to 40 judges and members of eight bar associations around the country. In 2017, ilf-nepal's/pds-nepal's clinical legal education program trained 19 law students. Ilf-nepal/pds-nepal also conducted five intensive criminal defense trainings that instructed a total of 142 nepali legal aid lawyers. Finally, pds-nepal worked to form a civil society working group of legal aid providers, which now has a total of ten members and aims to engage with governmental authorities to make recommendations for legal aid policy reform. Registered in tunisia as a nongovernmental organization in 2015, ilf-tunisia provides criminal defense services to indigent persons accused of misdemeanor cases, in which the accused do not have the right to appointed counsel. In 2017, ilf-tunisia contracted 68 cases, 14 of them as a result of ilf-tunisia's duty desk program in the police station and 51 at the court as a result of an agreement to access the case before the first hearing with the prosecutor. In 2017, ilf-tunisia worked to address arbitrary and illegal pre-trial detention by introducing pre-trial release motions. Ilf-tunisia filed pre-trial release motions in 100% of the cases it contracted in which the client was in custody. In 2017, ilf-tunisia expanded its release motion to include request for diversion and detention alternatives, taking advantage of a seldom-used section of the criminal procedural code that allows for detention alternatives. This also marked a strategic change in how ilf-tunisia used the first court hearing. At the start of the ilf-tunisia program, initial court hearings were often the first trial hearings. In 2017, having established the initial hearing as a hearing to address pre-trial issues instead of being forced to trial, ilf-tunisia continued to move the issue forward by using the hearing to begin to address not just bail but detention alternatives, diversion and other pre-trial motions, such as suppression of evidence or the client's mental health status. Ilf-tunisia also won its first ever cassation court case in 2017, convincing the court to overturn a guilty verdict in a case in which the accused had been unlawfully arrested. The ilf-tunisia duty lawyer project, which provides access to legal aid from the time of arrest, was also expanded in 2017 to an additional city (ariana). In 2017, the ilf established a new public defender program in myanmar to address the access to justice crisis for poor and vulnerable accused. Although myanmar's new legal aid law provides for the right to legal aid, in practice few indigent accused receive representation. Without access to legal aid, indigent accused are subject to sweeping violations of their rights from the moment of arrest. The ilf has observed that suspects and accused are routinely arrested in myanmar in the absence of a cognizable offense and, once arrested, are denied basic due process rights. Accused persons have the right to be brought before a magistrate within 24 hours and the right to apply for pre-trial release pending trial; these rights are frequently violated, resulting in illegal and excessive detention of the accused. Further, prosecutors routinely engage in improper upcharging, and courts, plagued with inefficiencies, often continue cases for months while the accused languish in prison. Fair trial rights are also routinely violated by the courts. In 2017, the ilf hired and trained the first myanmar public defenders and began providing quality legal representation to poor and marginalized accused starting in yangon. Following an intensive training period, ilf-myanmar's yangon lawyers provided legal aid services to 22 indigent accused, including 14 men and six women, during the last two months of the year. In its first few cases, ilf-myanmar brought attention to the abuse of pretrial detention and advocated for the release of accused persons charged with both "bailable and "non-bailable" offenses. Ilf-myanmar has also worked on making inroads with judges, court officers and police on developing and implementing an early access mechanism, which has resulted in duty day arrangements in a few police stations. Total expenses: $ 2,375,727

advice and assistance: see schedule oadvice and assistance: in 2017, the ilf provided advice and assistance to the justice communities of the countries in which it works, delivering in-depth training and advising on the reform of those countries' criminal legal aid systems. The ilf also regularly receives requests for advice and assistance from other countries around the world. In 2017, the un office on drugs and crime published its model law on legal aid, after substantial input from experts, including the ilf. This tool will be helpful as the ilf advocates for specific legal aid reforms in the countries in which it works, as the model law on legal aid contains many best practices that have been the subject of the ilf's advocacy campaigns, including those related to quality legal aid. Before its publication, the ilf drafted an important revision to the chapter of the legal aid law on quality representation and the role of lawyers. In the final document, the model law discusses the role of lawyers as an obligation to represent clients and discusses the right of defendants to be represented by a lawyer. This distinction is invaluable to the ilf's efforts to combat global threats to access to free legal aid. By enshrining legal aid provision protections in law, the ilf is protecting poor and vulnerable accused around the world. The model law on legal aid can be found here: https://www. Unodc. Org/documents/justice-and-prison-reform/legalaid/model_law_on_legal_aid. Pdf. In 2017, the ilf was asked by the international institute of justice (iij) to lend its expertise to a training in ethiopia on the effective handling of terrorism cases, with the goal of bringing together justice sector actors to interpret the controversial ethiopian anti-terrorism proclamation. The iij works with both the united states and the european union on a variety of technical assistance efforts aimed at investigators, prosecutors, judges, parliamentarians and others, with a focus on best practices in the counter-terrorism arena. The ilf's founder and board member, natalie rea, and its managing director nicole taylor participated in the training in addis ababa, ethiopia from august 21-25, 2017. In its presentations, the ilf team emphasized that a terrorism suspect has the same fundamental rights to a fair trial and effective defense as those accused of other crimes and focused on core principles of defense representation, such as early access to counsel, bail requests, client interviews and investigation and solid legal analysis. The training was very well-received and showcased the ilf's successful approach to providing practical training that merges best practices, defense techniques and advocacy with local laws. In 2017, ilf managing director nicole taylor made a number of presentations around the united states to promote the ilf's groundbreaking 2016 publication "measuring justice: defining and evaluating quality for criminal legal aid providers". In february, ms. Taylor presented at the national roundtable on public defense at the miami dade public defender office. Ms. Taylor discussed legal aid challenges around the world and how they look similar to those faced in many us cities, and she also introduced the ilf's "measuring justice" publication. In september, ms. Taylor traveled to a national legal aid and defenders association workshop in las vegas to introduce "measuring justice" to u. S. Public defenders and to comment on a recent evaluation that the ilf/nlada had done on the quality of the ilf's legal aid work in the west bank. The u. S. Experts were impressed and agreed that they should use "measuring justice" to start to define how the quality of criminal defense services should be measured in the u. S. This is an important measure of the value of the ilf's expertise. The presentation made efficient use of the ten practice principles as outlined in "measuring justice," which were well-received by those in attendance. The presentation began a conversation around developing indicators for the practice principles to be used for domestic u. S. -based public defender offices, as well as legal aid offices internationally. These indicators, which are deeply informed by the ilf's practice principles, will be the subject of a new report from the nlada defender research consortium, to be published in january 2018. In november 2017, ms. Taylor and the ilf's executive director jennifer smith presented at a panel for the american criminology society in philadelphia on legal services for the indigent, showcasing the ilf publication "measuring justice" for the academic community. The panel was moderated by the ilf and featured presentations on: defining and evaluating quality in indigent defense, what is it about defense? , and the measuring justice research project: increasing access to justice globally by promoting an evidence based approach to criminal legal aid. Total expenses: $442,223

advocacy: see schedule o