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 PRESS RELEASE: Launching of the awareness raising campaign on Free Legal Aid in North Macedonia

Horizontal Facility project - North Macedonia: "Supporting enhanced access to higher quality Free Legal Aid Services"

Improving the quality of justice and ensuring access to enhanced quality of Free Legal Aid services is of paramount importance for the citizens of North Macedonia and a key priority of the European Union and the Council of Europe. On the occasion of the European Day of Justice, a high-level video conference was organised in Skopje by the European Union and Council of Europe joint action “Supporting enhanced access to higher quality Free Legal Aid services in North Macedonia”, in co-operation with the Ministry of Justice, to launch an awareness raising campaign promoting better access and more efficient free legal aid services for the citizens of North Macedonia.

Bojan Maricic - Minister of Justice of North Macedonia welcomed the participants and explained that the free legal aid system guarantees that citizens who are in a difficult financial situation can turn to the Ministry of Justice and its regional offices and ask for legal aid and a lawyer paid for from the Budget of North Macedonia. He underlined that all citizens should have guaranteed access to justice and a fair trial.

In his address Christophe Poirel - Director of Human Rights Directorate at the Council of Europe tackled the progress made in the field of Free Legal Aid services in North Macedonia, stressing that public awareness and information is also essential. “Citizens need to know that, under certain conditions, they can solve some of their problems and protect their rights with the support of free legal aid”, said Poirel in his address.

Nicola Bеrtolini - Head of Co-operation - Delegation of the European Union in Skopje, during his remarks was focused on the support provided by the EU until now and the challenges ahead for providing all citizens free legal aid.

During the online event which was live streamed via web platforms and shared in social media channels, the citizens had the opportunity to get acquainted with the new vision and future plans to improve free legal aid services in North Macedonia.

Important information was shared with the public on the new law on Free Legal Aid which aims to ensure better access to FLA services for Macedonian citizens. In this framework, the new dedicated website created by the Ministry of Justice will function as a resource platform for finding important and updated information on free legal aid services in North Macedonia.

This event was organised in the framework of the programme “Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Turkey II”, a co-operation initiative co-funded by the European Union and the Council of Europe and implemented by the Council of Europe, which aims at assisting beneficiaries in South-East Europe to comply with the Council of Europe standards and European Union acquis, in the framework of the enlargement process.

Skojpe, North Macedonia 26 October 2020