The Association of Citizens Centre for Environmental Democracy Florozon from Skopje, in cooperation with Environmental Law and Management Association EMLA from Hungary, started with implementation of the project “Equal Access for Effective Justice”. The project is financed by the European Union through the grant scheme of CDCD at the Ministry of Finance – “Strengthening the impact of the civil society in effective justice sector reforms. EuropeAid/159467/ID/ACT/MK, number of contract 12-6208/1.
The overall objective of the project “Equal Access for Effective Justice” is contribution towards creating an independent, impartial, efficient, quality and transparent judiciary, responsible for protection of individual rights and freedoms of the citizens, thereby to enable appropriate protection of the public interest.
The specific objectives include contribution towards building an effective system of legal aid, increasing the existing capacities of civil society organizations and representatives from relevant institutions for the environmental law and the possibilities of free legal aid, enabling environment for the marginalized groups and raising the public’s awareness about the right to a healthy environment and existing legal mechanisms. The target group includes that civil society organizations, representatives from the Ministry of Justice, the Academy for Judges and Public Prosecutors, the Chamber of Lawyers, the Faculty of Justice and the Ombudsman’s office. The final beneficiaries are the CSOs, the citizens, the vulnerable and marginalized groups within the society.
The project will enable cooperation among the key stakeholders based upon partnership and networking in and between the CSOs, strengthening their role in the rule of law and allowing participation in the judicial reforms. The visibility and the role of watch-dog and grass-root of the CSOs in the monitoring of the relevant policy implementation will be increased, which will lead towards connecting environment for the constituents.
A creation of national grass-root CSOs network is foreseen that within the project’s framework, as well as enabling greater visibility and impact on the civil society in the democratization processes on local and national level. Additionally, an initiative for enabling access to justice of vulnerable groups will be launched. Intensive inclusion of the media is also planned in order to spread information for the planned activities and raising the awareness of the public.
The overall activities will enable greater coverage of the media on the project’s topics and will encourage public debates for crucial problems, not only about the right to a healthy environment. The project will last 24 months.
Thus, the participation of the civil society organizations is foreseen in the following activities:
The overall objective of the project “Equal Access for Effective Justice” is contribution towards creating an independent, impartial, efficient, quality and transparent judiciary, responsible for protection of individual rights and freedoms of the citizens, thereby to enable appropriate protection of the public interest.
The specific objectives include contribution towards building an effective system of legal aid, increasing the existing capacities of civil society organizations and representatives from relevant institutions for the environmental law and the possibilities of free legal aid, enabling environment for the marginalized groups and raising the public’s awareness about the right to a healthy environment and existing legal mechanisms. The target group includes that civil society organizations, representatives from the Ministry of Justice, the Academy for Judges and Public Prosecutors, the Chamber of Lawyers, the Faculty of Justice and the Ombudsman’s office. The final beneficiaries are the CSOs, the citizens, the vulnerable and marginalized groups within the society.
The project will enable cooperation among the key stakeholders based upon partnership and networking in and between the CSOs, strengthening their role in the rule of law and allowing participation in the judicial reforms. The visibility and the role of watch-dog and grass-root of the CSOs in the monitoring of the relevant policy implementation will be increased, which will lead towards connecting environment for the constituents.
A creation of national grass-root CSOs network is foreseen that within the project’s framework, as well as enabling greater visibility and impact on the civil society in the democratization processes on local and national level. Additionally, an initiative for enabling access to justice of vulnerable groups will be launched. Intensive inclusion of the media is also planned in order to spread information for the planned activities and raising the awareness of the public.
The overall activities will enable greater coverage of the media on the project’s topics and will encourage public debates for crucial problems, not only about the right to a healthy environment. The project will last 24 months.
Thus, the participation of the civil society organizations is foreseen in the following activities:
- Creation of a national coordinative body;
- Creation of a national coalition of civil society organizations
- Building capacities of civil society organizations with transfer of expertise from EU member country;