A two day training for access to justice in cases of domestic and gender-based violence was held for the employees of the Regional Offices of the Ministry of Justice and the Centers for Social Work, jointly organised by the EU/CoE Horizontal Facility II Action "Supporting enhanced access to higher quality Free Legal Aid services in North Macedonia" implemented by the CoE Programme Office in Skopje and the project “Access to justice for the most marginalised” implemented by the Foundation Open Society-Macedonia, LET Station and HOPS, financially supported by the European Union. The event was attended by around 50 participants.

The main objective of this training was to improve the capacities and the effectiveness of the employees of the Regional Offices of the Ministry of Justice (ROs) and the Centers for Social Work (CSW) especially when dealing with domestic and gender-based violence cases and to improve the coordination and the cooperation between the CSW and the ROs. Several sessions were delivered by the trained trainers from the Ministry of Justice, thus strengthening their capacity for delivery of sessions not only to their colleagues from the Ministry of Justice, but also to the colleagues from other Ministry as well. A separate session was held regarding the Law on administrative procedure and the Law on administrative disputes which was of utmost importance for their daily work on cases.

The goal of the Action “Supporting enhanced access to higher quality Free Legal Aid services in North Macedonia”. is to strengthen the capacities of the key actors in North Macedonia in their efforts to strengthen efficiency, quality, accessibility and awareness about the free legal aid. This initiative is part of the joint European Union/Council of Europe programme “Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Turkey 2019-2022” being implemented in close cooperation with the Ministry of Justice of Republic of North Macedonia.