The Council of Europe and the European Union are supporting the legal clinic of the Academy of Justice of Azerbaijan to provide qualified free legal aid to vulnerable and disadvantaged groups of population that are financially unable to access legal services.

Since September 2018, 31 selected law students supervised by 15 lawyers have been engaged in the provision of pro-bono legal aid services from 10:00am to 6:00 pm during five days a week at the legal clinic of the Academy. In total 196 clients have been received by the legal clinic as of end of November 2018. During this period, 116 applications were prepared (84 claims and appeals to the courts and 32 applications to the various state institutions) and 80 oral consultations were provided.

The program aimed to provide the law students with an opportunity to gain hands-on legal experience under supervision of lawyers, such as interviewing and advising clients, conducting legal research and drafting legal documents, in addition to strengthening the capacity of the legal clinic of the Academy of Justice to provide qualified free legal consultations to women and vulnerable groups on various legal issues.

The activity is organized in the framework of the “Application of the European Convention on Human Rights and the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights in Azerbaijan” project, which is part of the Partnership for Good Governance (PGG) program for Eastern Partnership countries and is funded by the European Union and the Council of Europe.