Justice for all
Serbia, 8 April 2008 – The second phase of the Legal Aid Fund, promising access to justice for some of the most vulnerable people in Serbia, began yesterday with contracts signed between UNDP Serbia, the Serbian Ministry of Justice and the partner organizations providing legal aid. Following a highly successful first phase of the project from August 2007, the project is now financed until December 2008.
The signing ceremony forms part of a continued partnership between the UNDP office in Serbia and the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Serbia within the wider project financed by the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA), entitled: “Establishment of an effective and sustainable system of legal aid provision in the Republic of Serbia”.
Thanks to the contracts signed yesterday, citizens of Serbia suffering from poverty or under threat of social marginalization and exclusion, such as refugees and internally displaced persons, members of the Roma community, victims of domestic violence and persons with disabilities, will continue to enjoy legal aid provided to them by the bar associations, NGOs, municipalities as well as legal clinics of Faculties of Law across Serbia – all among the 34 partner organizations contracted in the second phase of operation of the Legal Aid Fund.
The Legal Aid Fund is a mechanism for supporting legal aid providers, for researching their capacities as well as the needs and demand for legal aid by the end beneficiaries, the citizens of Serbia. Further, the Fund allows for research to be made into optimal methods for standardizing the quality of legal aid services and most effective ways of financing a system of legal aid provision. Working with a specially-designed database, the project aims to get a precise picture of the legal aid needs of society and the services provided by partner organisations, to feed into the draft Law on Free Legal Aid, which may be adopted early in 2009.
At the signing ceremony, both the Minister of Justice in the Government of Serbia, HE Dusan Petrovic, and the Resident Representative of UNDP in Serbia, Lance Clark, pledged their continued support for the aims of the Fund and the larger project, thanking all of the Fund's partners for their cooperation in making the Fund a success story. Mr. Clark thanked the representatives of the media in particular, for bringing this story to the Serbian public – "the story of access to justice for all citizens of Serbia".
In the first round of grants disbursed by the Legal Aid Fund, the total of 26 partner organizations delivered legal assistance to more than 4,600 beneficiaries over a 5 month period. This, the second round of grants by the Legal Aid Fund, extends both the number of partner organizations to 34, as well as the scope of their work by including employment-related disputes in the range of services provided. The work of the Fund’s partners is financed until December 2008.
For all further information, please contact Mr. Stevan Vujasinovic, UNDP/UNRC Communications Specialist at +381 11 2040 405 or at stevan.vujasinovic@undp.org.
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