Public Chambers

The Public Chambers are the public defender of the Commonwealth, and an establishment of the Parliament of Law set up in 1966. They also act as an advocate for tenants and workers in the tribunals, and give free legal advice in most towns from small offices called advice bureaux. Their headquarters, Representations House, is in Kairi.

Unlike a public defender overseas, the chambers act in nearly every criminal case in the country. Since legal fees are not paid in the commons, private advocates rarely take criminal work, and the chambers’ advocates, known as representers, defend about 55,000 of the 60,000 cases brought each year by the Commonwealth Prosecution Service. A detained person may still pick an advocate from the roll of the Commonwealth Law Society. Since 2056 the right to a lawyer has been set out in the Commonwealth Counsel Act.

Representers have a right of access to any police station or penitentiary, and work in the cells and courtrooms as well as in the penitentiaries after sentence. The Duty Representers Office keeps one at most courthouses on court days, and young offenders are represented by an office in Cama.

Rent is not paid in the commons, and most cases in the housing tribunals concern stewardship, repairs and competing claims to a house. In these the representer usually stands opposite a government lawyer from the General Chambers or the Bureau of Housing. The chambers will also give advice by post, from an office in Barbados.

Nearly all representers belong to the Law Society. Their college is in Antigua, where the society’s examination is held each June. A few travel with the circuit courts, and the outer circuit office in the Falklands has a staff of about 60.