Liaison Prosecutor Paralegal Assistant

Job Description (Roles and Responsibilities)

**Main purpose of job**:
The country-based assistant will support and assist the Liaison Prosecutor in achieving their objectives as set by the CPS.

The Liaison Prosecutor works with UK law enforcement and prosecution agencies to ensure effective investigative and prosecution outcomes in the UK and South Africa and to develop and improve relationships with South African partners.

The Liaison Prosecutor’s work can sometimes involve providing support to UK prosecution and law enforcement authorities with casework in jurisdictions outside of South Africa. The country-based assistant may also be required to support such work.

The country-based assistant will work closely with the Liaison Prosecutor to provide administrative and organisational assistance including: providing research support (written and oral), ensuring the extensive and varied caseload is adequately managed and reports and records are kept up-to-date, and attending meetings with UK and South African partners.

The country-based assistant may also be called upon to conduct legal research, help to prepare guidance and briefing documents and assist the Liaison Prosecutor in preparing and delivering presentations. The country-based assistant may be given independent casework tasks and will be asked to help the Liaison Prosecutor develop and improve relationships with UK and South African stakeholders. The country-based assistant may be asked to attend internal meetings at the High Commission to represent the CPS on the country board and/or operations board if the Liaison Prosecutor is unavailable.

The country-based assistant should be prepared to attend training events to develop and improve their legal knowledge and administrative skills.

**Roles and responsibilities**:

- Establishing, maintaining, and strengthening relationships with key stakeholders within South Africa and in particular within the Ministry of Justice (MOJ), the Attorney General (AG), the Public Prosecution Offices (PPO) in South Africa.
- Maintaining existing cooperative and productive working relationships with the UK law enforcement agencies and other HMG departments represented at Post.
- Case management of UK Mutual legal assistance (MLA), asset recovery and extradition requests, including initial review and triage, if directed by the Liaison Prosecutor.
- Providing essential administrative support, to contribute to the delivery of project work to enhance bilateral cooperation and progress UK priorities, to include proactively maintaining the database of requests for formal international cooperation from the UK to the South Africa.
- Providing legal support by conducting open source legal research of South Africa criminal justice laws and criminal justice processes, as directed by the Liaison Prosecutor.
- Preparing formal written reports, maintaining the CPS casework log, transfer log and risk register and submitting these to CPS International each month at the direction of the Liaison Prosecutor.
- Identifying case work actions and assisting with the progression of case work, sometimes independently in the absence of the Liaison Prosecutor; knowing when to escalate up where necessary
- Conducting ad-hoc, open-source research and analysis, presenting findings in a logical and concise manner.
- Managing the Liaison Prosecutor’s diary appointments including organising meetings, preparing and distributing agendas, briefing papers and minutes.
- Working closely with the CPS Operational Delivery team to plan and organise travel for inward and outward visits, and to compile and organise programmes for incoming/outgoing conferences, workshops and other training events.
- Supporting broader Embassy/High Commission work and objectives where appropriate, to include crisis response and cover for HMG partners at post during periods of absence as required.
- Travelling to the UK, or traveling in-country or regionally, to support the Liaison Prosecutor including to attend training events / team days.

The above list is not exhaustive and the country-based assistant will be required to be flexible and take on other ad hoc tasks as required.

**Resources managed** (staff and expenditure):
No staff management

No expenditure management but post holder will be expected to effectively manage resources and monitor expenditure and will be accountable to the budget holder for expenditure incurred.

Essential qualifications, skills and experience
- SC clearance (or the ability to be cleared to SC)
- Fluent in written and spoken English
- IT skills including working knowledge of Microsoft Office (Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint)
- Excellent interpersonal and communication skills with an ability to work with a range of stakeholders and to convey messages in a professional way
- Organisational and time-management skills with ability to demonstrate initiative, autonomy and self-motivation
- Self-starter with enthusiasm of energy, able to work i