In order to take stock of the current achievements, the 6th 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 23 November 2022 in Skopje.
The meeting brought together representatives of the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and Regional Offices, Bar Association, 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 to exchange views on the planned activities for the future phase under HF III.
During the presentation of the results, a special focus was brought on the activities related to the awareness raising campaign for Free Legal Aid (that kicked off in October 2020 and reached more than a half million people) and the capacity building of the legal aid providers. Statistics were presented which show that according to the Annual Report of the MoJ for 2021 the number of people who received primary legal aid at the Regional Offices of the Ministry of Justice saw an increase of 299% in comparison with 2019, as a result of the campaign. The total number of approved requests for secondary legal aid saw an increase of 125% in 2021 in comparison with 2019.
During the meeting it 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). Furthermore, the project also managed to effectively respond to the urgent needs of the Ministry of Justice in the past period. These achievements increased the quality and the efficiency of FLA provision to the citizens in North Macedonia, which was also noted in the EC Progress Report 2022 for North Macedonia.
The Steering Committee members agreed on the significant need for the Action to continue in the next phase (under HF III) focusing on further 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, 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 and special focus need to be put 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 2019-2022”, a joint European Union and 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.
