News ROMI.HR

A Conference on the topic «Legal support to the victims of human rights violation – opportunities and challenges for Civil Society Organisations in Croatia» was held in Zagreb on the 23rd of April, organized by the House of Human Rights and supported by Active Citizens Fund.

As part of the NEW BEGINNING project, aimed at fostering a proactive, progressive, and influential civil society for human rights protection and promotion, the House of Human Rights Zagreb conducted an analysis of existing models of free legal aid for victims of human rights violations. The objective was to formulate innovative strategies for enhancing such support. 

The focus was on examining the current regulatory framework governing legal support for victims of human rights violations in Croatia, assessing its practical implementation, and subsequently devising strategies to enhance its effectiveness and quality. Through the launch of the event with relevant stakeholders including civil society organizations offering free legal support in Croatia, several challenges and deficiencies in the current system were identified, as well as solutions for enhancing the system's efficacy were developed.

The Conference speakers were Dijana Kesonja, Deputy Ombudsman; Natalija Havelka from The Center for Peace, Nonviolence and Human Rights, Osijek; Željka Leljak Gracin from Green Action and Associate Doctor of Science Matija Miloš from the Faculty of Law, University of Rijeka.

The first part of the event was devoted to identifying the problems of providing free legal assistance. First of all, the most frequently mentioned problem, which was emphasized by most speakers, was insufficient funds.

Željka Gracin from the environmental organization highlighted: “Before joining the EU there was a lot of financial support provided. After becoming a member this support ended. All these organizations (that were existing based on support) and attorneys are in limbo now. You can be very specialized, but ends need to be met and you are still in a state of limbo…We used to perform many different practices, but because of lack of funding we have to choose.”

Colleagues joined Željka and also highlighted the problem of lack of funds as one of the main ones. According to Natalia Havelka, funds must be available to the organization so that they are able to pay for attorneys who undergo legal bar examination and represent their clients in court. Funding that should be received by the organization at the beginning of the year to allocate the budget is allocated too late.

“...Only in 2024, we have already provided 400 people with free legal aid. Although the funds have not been received yet.”

Moreover, the funds received are often not enough to cover all the expenses.

“In 2023 we couldn’t provide full salaries for all year. Last year we got 32,400 euro and 40,590 euro are expected to be received in 2024. This is efficient for 1.5 employees, plus utility costs and equipment coverage which has to be requested separately. »

This problem leads to the fact that young specialists do not want to work in civil organizations. Newly minted lawyers put a lot of effort into obtaining the necessary certification and understand that the amount of money paid per month is not worth all the effort, which results in a shortage of staff in CSOs.

In addition to the lack of people and finances, one of the very present obstacles in the work is also the territorial coverage of assistance and its accessibility. People from rural areas still experience difficulties getting free legal aid.

“Almost 50% of registered providers are in Zagreb, there are some places where there is no legal aid provision at all, but the need for it remains...,” said Dijana Kesonja

The Deputy Ombudsman also emphasized that coupled with the difficulty of accessing assistance in rural areas, there is a lack of direct contact with people from these places. Often, due to the current situation, people are not aware that they can get legal advice and free legal assistance; they are not aware of the law and do not know that their problems can be solved through civil structures.

According to the experts, the territorial coverage partially can be solved by updating the list of lawyers in the country. The area of legal help changes all the time. Some organisations close, and some of them move to another place. Therefore, it is essential to have a system with the details on the legal providers that would be regularly updated and monitor that the territories are covered with support.

Such a solution can lead to a positive decrease in the amount of work per CSO if State Administrations in Counties are included in the free legal aid provision. Additionally, people have to have a connection with local transport to get to the support offices and they have to be provided with Internet access. The cooperation with municipalities has to be improved to be able to help people online and make the whole system more digital.

Moreover, to increase the level of legal literacy of the population, the Ministry of Justice should establish media campaigns, spread flyers and marketing techniques for more sufficient societal awareness.

For NGO workers themselves, according to the recommendations of speakers, it is necessary to reduce the amount of bureaucratic work, increase educational training provided by the government, involve law students to work in the free legal aid field.

“Legal students can help and at the same time obtain the experience of reality that they lack,” - Matija Miloš, a professor at Rijeka University, supported the initiative.

Matija Miloš was also the only one among the speakers who several times pointed out the main sources of the problem - poor interpretation of the law, too formal approach to the topic and authoritarian rule of law that make the difference drastically for the organisations which provide free legal help. 

As a result of the Conference, 13 recommendations were developed, including analysis of actual costs necessary for providing primary legal assistance; announcement and carrying out tenders for the allocation of financial resources for the provision of primary free legal aid earlier; education at the judicial academy, equal evaluation of work in CSOs and works of lawyers and notary trainees, and many others.