Project Proposal

ADVOCACY LEGAL ASSISTANCE TO CITIZENS

Author and coordinator:: Božo Prelević

League of Experts – Lex, which is composed of Association of Judges of Serbia and recent dismissed judges of the highest courts in Serbia, who have became advocates, gives advocacy assistance to the citizens.

Background

During recent years in Yugoslavia there has been a big gap between the citizen's needs for legal assistance and possibilities to afford it. The cause of that gap was rapid poorness because of the general terms of the country that had reflected the economy on the state level, but even more on the common life. Nevertheless, advocate's tariffs are highly established compared to the average salaries. For example, the basic, initial application to the Court, made by an advocate, is more expensive than the average salary in Serbia. This resulted in many cases of deprivatisation of citizen's right, just because of impossibility to afford the advocate's services. During the 10 previous years those situations remained uncorrected.

During the previous regime, many legal cases were misused. It happened that one starts procedure that was clear and easy to solve, but because of the specific position of one of the parties in the case, it was never brought to an end. Citizens even got used to this treatment, and the whole situation contributed to the general feeling of legal insecurity, lack of trust in the Courts and in advocates (whom they hardly managed to pay but without results that were expected).

New democratic changes in Serbia are urgently seeking for a way to correct those situations in a way that would suit to the new democratic society and specially to the State of Law. Therefore, League of Experts-LEX has decided to offer its services to the citizens.

League of Experts – LEX was founded in April 2000. It (League of Experts) gathers eminent experts of theory and practice (see the list of coordinators). Therefore, we are able to provide legal assistance to citizens.

PROJECT DESCRIPTION:

Experts-consulting assistance would be provided for different legal fields (criminal, civil, labor, constitutional etc.) by dismissed judges (advocates from 18.09.2000) of:

Constitutional Court: Mr. Slobodan Vucetic,

Superior Court of Serbia: Zoran Ivosevic PhD, Leposava Karamarkovic LL M,

District and Municipal Courts: Bozo Prelevic, Dusan Slijepcevic, Goran Cavlina, Gordana Mihailovic, Mirjana Rasic, Cica Kastratovic, Ivan Bajazit, Goran Čavlina, Vida Petrović Škero, Radmila Dičić, Mirjana Pavlović, Sanja Lekić, Vlastimir Janković;

The whole experts team will be divided into the working groups, composed of 4 lawyers for each relevant field (criminal, civil, labor and constitutional) and they will be in charge for one day per a week for 4 hours and once a week they gather all together to adjust their attitudes.

Citizens can come personally to the LEX office or ask their questions through the mail, fax, phone, etc. or they can make an appointment in advance if they feel they need more time to explain and discuss their legal problem.

Legal assistance will include all legal actions necessary in the procedure in front of the court on a party's behalf as well as legal advices.

PROJECT OBJECTIVES:

The aim of this project is to help citizens who were, mostly for financial reasons, unable to use their legal right and to achieve justice.

On a long term, the objective of this project is to rebuild State of Law and to give certainty and faith to the system. The curtail feature of a modern democratic society is to aim to the Rule of Law, and the Rule of Law can be established only if citizens can reach their rights. This project is attempt to help citizens to achieve it.

JUSTIFICATION OF THE PROJECT:

League of experts LEX gathers eminent experts form the legal fields. The reason for their dismissing was that they had never agreed to any legal misuse and corruption and inadequate procedure. Doubtless, professional and ethical quality of LEX members, above all of dismissed judges – members of Judge Association of Serbia (by the attitude of European Council the only positive fact that happened in Serbia in 1997) is the guarantee of professionalism in legal consulting assistance. Credibility of those judges guarantees that the legal assistance would be fully achieved. Therefore, they are able to offer trust and guarantee by their personalities, by their great knowledge and experience.

LEX experts are able to rebuild the faith in legal system and to provide the citizens with a feeling of not being “citizen of the second rate” but to feel as if they had been in any other democratic state of law.

What is the most important, legal help will be available to anyone who requires it, with no reference of his/her financial situation. In this way, we hope to bring more justice to the system and to overcome problems of financial nature and to solve legal problems in legal way.

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