Amid the con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing a leaked tele­phone con­ver­sa­tion in­volv­ing busi­ness­woman Star Sab­ga and mem­bers of the Hadeed fam­i­ly, for­mer House Speak­er Nizam Mo­hammed has drawn at­ten­tion to a broad­er and ar­guably more im­por­tant is­sue: the hun­dreds of cit­i­zens de­tained un­der Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders (PDOs) who lack the fi­nan­cial means to se­cure le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tion.

Mo­hammed, an at­tor­ney and vet­er­an politi­cian, used a re­cent fo­rum on cit­i­zens’ rights, free­doms, as­sem­bly and protest dur­ing the State of Emer­gency to chal­lenge the le­gal fra­ter­ni­ty to con­sid­er the plight of de­tainees whose voic­es are rarely heard. While the cas­es in­volv­ing promi­nent busi­ness fig­ures have dom­i­nat­ed head­lines and at­tract­ed the ser­vices of se­nior at­tor­neys, he ques­tioned whether less priv­i­leged de­tainees are be­ing af­ford­ed the same ac­cess to jus­tice.

His an­swer was a call to ac­tion.

“I am sum­mon­ing my broth­ers and sis­ters in the le­gal fra­ter­ni­ty to come for­ward and we are go­ing to form a con­sor­tium and we are go­ing to rep­re­sent these peo­ple in the same way that the priv­i­leged have been rep­re­sent­ed,” Mo­hammed de­clared.

The pro­pos­al de­serves se­ri­ous con­sid­er­a­tion.

The re­al­i­ty is that in­equal­i­ties with­in so­ci­ety of­ten be­come most vis­i­ble when in­di­vid­u­als come in­to con­tact with the jus­tice sys­tem. Those with fi­nan­cial re­sources can re­tain ex­pe­ri­enced le­gal coun­sel and vig­or­ous­ly chal­lenge de­ci­sions af­fect­ing their lib­er­ty. Oth­ers, how­ev­er, may find them­selves de­pen­dent on an al­ready stretched le­gal aid sys­tem or un­able to ef­fec­tive­ly pur­sue their rights.

Mo­hammed’s sug­ges­tion of­fers an op­por­tu­ni­ty to help bridge that di­vide. A co­or­di­nat­ed ef­fort by at­tor­neys will­ing to pro­vide pro bono rep­re­sen­ta­tion could help en­sure that de­tainees, re­gard­less of their eco­nom­ic cir­cum­stances, have mean­ing­ful ac­cess to le­gal ad­vice and rep­re­sen­ta­tion be­fore the rel­e­vant tri­bunals and courts.

This is not to sug­gest that busi­ness lead­ers or af­flu­ent cit­i­zens should be de­nied the right to se­cure the best le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tion avail­able. Ac­cess to le­gal coun­sel is a fun­da­men­tal right. The is­sue is whether that right is be­ing en­joyed equal­ly by all cit­i­zens.

A jus­tice sys­tem com­mands pub­lic con­fi­dence on­ly when it is seen as fair and ac­ces­si­ble. Ques­tions about whether all de­tainees have been ad­e­quate­ly in­formed of their rights and giv­en rea­son­able ac­cess to le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tion are le­git­i­mate and de­serve care­ful ex­am­i­na­tion.

Mo­hammed’s ap­peal al­so serves as a re­minder of the le­gal pro­fes­sion’s wider re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. Be­yond rep­re­sent­ing clients, at­tor­neys are guardians of the rule of law and play a crit­i­cal role in en­sur­ing that jus­tice is not re­served for those who can af­ford it.

His call is not one for pub­lic­i­ty or po­lit­i­cal point-scor­ing. It is a chal­lenge to the crim­i­nal and civ­il bar as­so­ci­a­tions, as well as in­di­vid­ual prac­ti­tion­ers, to put the pro­fes­sion’s high­est ideals in­to prac­tice.

To­day the con­cern may be for those de­tained un­der PDOs. To­mor­row it could be any­one. En­sur­ing that jus­tice re­mains ac­ces­si­ble to all is not mere­ly an act of char­i­ty. It is a nec­es­sary safe­guard of democ­ra­cy and the rule of law.