Achievements and Challenges of Independent Legal Aid

Source: UNDP in Georgia.

Representatives of the Georgian Parliament, Government, judiciary, international organizations and civil society, as well as the members of the Legal Aid Reformers’ Network (LARN) and leading experts from Georgia, Great Britain, Lithuania, Moldova, Sierra Leone and Ukraine will be disscussing independent legal aid as a critical part of the justice system at an international conference in Tbilisi on September 28-29, 2017.

The Chairman of the Georgian Parliament, Irakli Kobakhidze, opened the conference with welcome remarks.

This was followed by the addresses from Nino Gvenetadze, Chief Justice of Georgia; Niels Scott, UNDP Resident Representative in Georgia; Peter Danis, Manager of Justice for All Programme of the Delegation of the European Union to Georgia; Laura B. Berger, Acting Director, Democracy, Governance and Social Development Office, USAID/Georgia, and Giorgi Burjanadze, Human Rights Programme Manager of the Open Society Georgia Foundation.

Meliton Benidze, Director of Legal Aid Service of Georgia, and Eka Popkhadze, Chairperson of Legal Aid Board, stressed the importance of quality legal services for the vulnerable as an integral part of the right to justice and fair trial.

“Georgia is strongly committed to developing and promoting a competent and sustainable legal aid service. We have achieved a lot since 2007, when the Legal Aid Service was first established in Georgia, and are determined to move forward benefitting from the growing cooperation with our partners across the region,” Meliton Benidze said.

The two-day conference addresses a range of topics, including the effective models of administering and monitoring legal aid, and ensuring the quality of legal services. The conference participants discuss challenges faced by legal aid in different countries, as well as the use of modern technology and innovative solutions in providing the access to justice for all.

The conference is organized by the Legal Aid Service of Georgia (LAS) and supported by Open Society Georgia Foundation (OSGF), European Union (EU), United States Agency for International Development (USAID), USAID project “Promoting Rule of Law in Georgia” (ProLOG), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).