The project “Strengthening access to justice in Latvia through fostering mediation and legal aid services (Phase II)” held its closing event on 21 February in Riga, Latvia. The event kicked off with opening statements by Kristīne Pommere,Deputy State Secretary for Foreign Cooperation and Strategy, Kjartan Bjornsson, Deputy Director of DG REFORM , and Daniele Cangemi, Head of the Department for Human Rights, Justice and Legal Cooperation Standard-setting activities at the Council of Europe.

International and local CEPEJ experts presented the main results of the Project, beginning with a recommendation for the introduction of a model for state-ensured primary legal aid in Latvia. The conclusions of the pilot project offering primary legal aid for 10 weeks in the framework of the project, demonstrated the needs specific to Latvia. With the information gleaned from this experience, supporting tools and documents for a new model could also be made and thus presented: quality assurance tools for primary legal aid, methods to define quality standards, and a training module for primary legal aid providers were also discussed during the event.  

A second focus of the Project was the promotion of mediation. In this context, a new training on mediation, based on CEPEJ tools, was developed which was aimed at legal professionals. This training directly targets the issue of a lack of awareness among legal professionals on how mediation could benefit both them and their clients.

This project was funded by the EU via the Technical Support Instrument of the European Union and implemented by the Council of Europe, in cooperation with the European Commission.