Ukraine’s experience with early access to legal aid and the impact on human rights
Andriy Vyshnevsky
Director of the Coordinating Centre for Legal Aid Provision
Vienna 12 may 2014
What is the legal aid system in Ukraine? • Duty private lawyer scheme, functioning «24/7» • 27 Legal Aid Centres in all provinces managed by Coordination Center under responsibility of the Ministry of Justice • About 4.000 private lawyers selected through open competition by Ministry of Justice; nearly 2.000 of them contracted by Legal Aid Centres
To whom the right to early access to legal aid is guaranteed? Since January 1, 2013, legal aid has been provided to the individuals: • subject to administrative detention • subject to administrative arrest • subject to detention on the suspicion of committing an offence
Delivery early access to legal aid • 27 round-the-clock administrators on-duty in the Legal Aid Centres (rotating shift of 1 day on/3 days off) • About 500 lawyers on-duty permanently, covering the whole territory of Ukraine • Police is obliged to inform Legal Aid Centres about every detention immediately • Legal Aid Centres are obliged to assign a contracted lawyer and to ensure that he/she attends a detainee within two hours • Toll-free phone number 800-213-103 to inform about fact of detention
Scheme of interaction of key actors for early access to legal aid Inform about violation of right for early access to legal aid
Legal Aid Centre Assign for legal aid providing
Contracted private lawyer on duty
Prosecutor office
Obliged to inform immediately
Have right to inform (or his or her family) Provide legal aid
Including appellation to the court decision on the prevention measure
Pre-trial proceedings supervision
Police office
Detains
A detainee
Information about the right to early access legal aid
Assuring quality of service • Obligatory Quality Standards for Provision of Legal Aid at the Pre-Trial Investigation Stage developed and approved (to be implemented from 1st of July 2014) • Set of Defender Manuals are developed and disseminated among all lawyers, providing legal aid • Regular (every 4 months) trainings for all lawyers, providing legal aid, have been conducting
Early access to legal aid in 2013 in figures Incoming calls on toll-free phone number
79,950
Legal aid has been provided to the individuals under: detention due to suspicion of committing an offence
22,345
administrative detention
4,912
administrative arrest
5,097
Rejection from legal aid
6.9%
Thank you for Attention! Coordinating Centre for Legal Aid Provision
ANDRIY VYSHNEVSKYI Director 73 Artema Str., 04053, Kyiv, Ukraine tel. +38 044 486 71 06 fax +38 044 486 77 45 e-mail: andriy.vyshnevsky@legalaid.gov.ua www.legalaid.gov.ua