North Macedonia: Supporting enhanced access to higher quality Free Legal Aid Services

Project Duration

36 months, 24 May 2019 – 23 May 2022

Budget

Euro 800 000

Key issues to be addressed

There is a need to support, through targeted capacity building, the main stakeholders to readily and efficiently implement the new law, while also enabling them to prevent and address future shortcomings through improved coordination and cooperation.
Regional Offices of the Ministry of Justice appear to be understaffed and existing staff suffers from limited resources and low levels of performance and motivation.
FLA literacy of both legal professionals and potential beneficiaries needs to be enhanced to support broader accessibility, with a special focus on women, children, and vulnerable groups

project components

The Action "Supporting enhanced access to higher quality Free Legal Aid services in North Macedonia" aims at enhancing the efficiency, quality, accessibility, and awareness of free legal aid in North Macedonia. More concretely the Action will focus on the:

harmonization of provisions, policies and practices related to free legal aid in North Macedonia;
capacity building for the main actors in the field (Ministry of Justice, Bar Association and CSOs) including more structured and continuous coordination between the main stakeholders;
awareness raising for the public and related institutional actors in the country to support increased access to free legal aid.

This Action is part of the Council of Europe/European Union "Horizontal Facility for Western Balkans and Turkey II"

Overall Objective

The Action aims at supporting the main actors in enhancing the efficiency, quality, scope, accessibility, and awareness of free legal aid provision in the country and addressing identified shortcomings. It builds upon the results achieved in the implementation of the previous Action on this issue (HF-35“Supporting Free Legal Aid Reforms in ‘the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia”) and supports effective implementation of the new Law on free legal aid, adopted in 2019.

Expected Results

The legal and policy framework related to the provision of Free Legal Aid will be harmonised in line with Council of Europe standards.

Capacities of Free Legal Aid providers to deliver quality legal aid are strengthened.
Access to Free Legal Aid by the population will be enhanced and the efficiency of the Free Legal Aid in North Macedonia will be strengthened.

The project continues the work initiated under the phase one of the Project.

target groups

Ministry of Justice, Bar Association, CSOs and Legal Clinics authorized to provide FLA

Judiciary, Centres for Social Welfare

End Beneficiaries

Free Legal Aid applicants, potential applicants and general population.

Project team

Rita Marascalchi, Project Co-ordinator (Strasbourg)

Irena Cuculovska Jakimovska, Project Manager (Skopje)

Anamarija Mitrovska, Project Assistant (Skopje)

North Macedonian website

Access to North Macedonian website.

Useful links

Project News

Back Local Co-ordination Body for implementation of the Law on Free Legal Aid established in Bitola following the example of the National Co-ordination Body

North Macedonia (Horizontal Facility): Supporting enhanced access to higher quality Free Legal Aid services

Local Co-ordination Body for implementation of the Law on Free Legal Aid established in Bitola following the example of the National Co-ordination Body

Two days following the establishment of the National Co-ordination Body (NCB) for implementation of the Law on Free Legal Aid in Skopje, a Local Co-ordination Body for implementation of the Law on Free Legal Aid had been established for the first time in Bitola, with the support of the Action on “Supporting enhanced access to higher quality Free Legal Aid services in North Macedonia”.

The Local Co-ordination Body is an informal forum for sharing information, communication and co-ordination among the stakeholders on topics concerning the implementation of the Law on Free Legal Aid in the local community (for example: promotion of the Law, access to information necessary for processing legal aid applications, referring of persons in need of legal aid, specific legal needs affecting the local community etc.).

The newly established body will function through regular meetings as well as through direct communication, mailing groups and other forms of communication. It will be composed of representatives of stakeholders directly involved in the process as responsible for administering the legal aid system or legal aid providers, as well as other institutions and organisations who are to a lesser extent relevant for the implementation of the Law.

The meeting was held at the Youth Cultural Centre – a civil society organisation authorised for provision of free legal aid.

The European Union and the Council of Europe supported the establishment of the Local Co-ordination Body and will keep supporting it by facilitating several meetings of this body under this Action. This will increase the capacities of this body to become entirely self-sustainable in the future beyond the end of the joint EU/CoE project. Establishment of local co-ordination bodies in other municipalities in North Macedonia will also be further encouraged and supported.

The Action on “Supporting enhanced access to higher quality Free Legal Aid services in North Macedonia” is part of the “Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Turkey II”, a joint EU/CoE programme implemented by the Council of Europe.

23 January 2020