The Regional Office of U-LEAD with Europe in the Donetsk Oblast organised an info session in partnership with the South-Eastern Interregional Free Legal Aid Centre.
At the event, municipal officials of the Donetsk Oblast spoke about the activities of the Centre and explained the options of cooperation with local self-government. They also discussed the procedure for releasing public information under martial law.
According to Andrii Riabukha, Adviser on Decentralisation and Local Self-Government at U-LEAD, residents of municipalities find themselves in need of quality legal assistance more and more often:
“These Centres offer legal advice to the public. They are especially important now when people are losing property or documents and need support to submit applications to the court or other relevant institutions. Municipalities should be aware of the possible ways of cooperation with these centres and partner up with them in order to promptly address similar problematic situations.”
Victoria Kharenko, Head of the Kramatorsk Office of this Centre, told the participants of the info session about the main directions of their work. As she explained, there are five of them in Ukraine, and they work as part of a single system:
“The South-Eastern Interregional Centre covers the Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Dnipropetrovsk and Luhansk Oblasts. It aims to improve the legal awareness, culture and education of persons who are under the jurisdiction of Ukraine. Another direction of the Centre is the provision of free primary and secondary legal aid.”
The expert analysed the services that people can get at the Centres and presented the main channels for communication with experts. For instance, you can visit the institution personally or use the electronic document management system. All contact information is available on the organisation’s official web pages.
According to Victoria Kharenko, Article 9 of the Law of Ukraine “On Free Legal Aid” lists local self-government bodies among the entities providing free primary legal aid in Ukraine.
“As for the scope of competence of local self-government bodies to provide free legal aid, it is quite wide. Among other things, it includes the consideration of appeals from persons who need this aid and its actual provision. You should also consider the creation of specialised institutions providing of primary aid in accordance with the needs of the municipality. The scope of competence of local self-government bodies also includes referring people to other providers of such services,” said the expert.
Pursuant to Article 12 of the Law of Ukraine “On Free Legal Aid”, local self-government bodies can establish, as prescribed by law, specialised institutions for providing free primary legal aid, which are financed from local budgets and other sources consistent with the law.
“The powers and operational procedures of these institutions are established by the Regulation on the Free Primary Legal Aid Institution approved on the basis of the Model Regulation on the Free Primary Legal Aid Institution. Keep in mind that not every municipality can create this type of an institution, since it requires funds from the local budget,” added Victoria Kharenko.
The expert emphasised the importance of fostering the partnership of the system of free legal aid with local self-government bodies of the oblast. She firmly believes that this cooperation will strengthen the legal capacity of municipalities in wartime.
“Within the limits of their competence, the South-Eastern Interregional Centre interacts with other entities offering free primary legal aid, provides advice and guidelines to local self-government and is ready to expand cooperation,” she said.
This cooperation can include a number of directions, such as public outreach regarding free legal aid; posting informational and legal materials on the official web pages and websites of local self-government bodies; holding awareness-raising events on legal issues; engaging the team of the Centre in coordination councils on IDPs, prevention and countering of domestic violence, etc.
The event also focused on access to public information, terms for consideration of citizens’ appeals, types of these appeals and the basic responsibilities of local self-government bodies in this area.