In order to take stock of the current achievements and agree on the future interventions, the Third Steering Committee meeting of the EU and Council of Europe joint action “Supporting enhanced access to higher quality Free Legal Aid services in North Macedonia” took place on 28 January 2021 in a form of an online meeting.
The meeting brought together representatives of the Ministry of Justice, Bar Association, Macedonian Young Lawyers Association, Secretariat for European Affairs, Foundation Open Society Macedonia, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Delegation of the European Union to North Macedonia and the action team to discuss the key results in the last period and exchanging views on the planned interventions for the future.
During the presentation of the results, a special focus was brought on the activities related to the awareness raising campaign for Free Legal Aid (FLA) that kicked off on 26 October 2020 where the action team had the opportunity to present the main results.
During the meeting was highlighted that the action achieved significant progress in strengthening the co-ordination and communication among the key stakeholders at national level by supporting the facilitation of the meetings of the National Co-ordination Body for implementation of the Law on Free Legal Aid (NCB) and by the successful work of the Working Group for drafting the Referral Protocol and the Directory of organizations. These achievements will increase the quality and the efficiency of FLA provision to the citizens in North Macedonia.
The Steering Committee members agreed on the proposed activities for the upcoming six months confirming that the action will continue to focus on enhancing the capacities and the quality of services of the regional offices of the Ministry of Justice, the Bar Association and the civil society organisations and Legal Clinics authorised for FLA. It will also focus on providing expert support to the Ministry of Justice and its FLA unit in harmonisation of provisions, policies and practices related to free legal aid, data collection and restructuring of this Unit. Further support will be provided in the area of legal aid in criminal proceedings.
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 European Union/Council of Europe programme implemented by the Council of Europe that enables the Beneficiaries to meet their reform agendas in the fields of human rights, rule of law and democracy and to comply with the European standards, including where relevant within the framework of the EU enlargement process.
