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First Component "Strengthening Access to Justice for the Poor and Socially Vulnerable in Russia"
The component is implemented under supervision of V.D. Mazaev (PhD)
 Art. 19 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation establishes that everybody is equal before the court and law. The concept of equality demands that equal rights are granted together with the equal opportunity to effectively vindicate them. The first component of equality (equality in law) requires adoption of appropriate law, while the second (equality in fact) involves undertaking positive measures, because the poor and vulnerable can not pay for the services of the attorneys to defend their rights in the court and due to the low level of knowledge of law they are unable to defend their rights in the court themselves. Therefore, without positive measures targeting provision of legal aid to this groups, this group of people will not have access to equal rights. Thus, proclaimed equality will not be reached.
Currently in Russia there are several programs aiming provision of legal aid for the poor. For instance, attorneys provide legal aid to 300-400 thousand poor people and the notary chamber provides legal aid to 700 thousand within the established governmental quota. However, the real demand of legal aid is many times higher. Such inability to meet the social demand for legal aid can be explained by several reasons:
- Complicated mechanism of financing legal aid (in some cases it is required to present fourteen different papers certifying the status of the poor);
- Lack of attorneys in about half of the court districts in Russia (less then two attorneys per district, according to the statistics provided by Ministry of Justice);
- Long distance between the existing consulting centers and the dwelling places of the poor (in particular, villages and small towns);
- Legislative limitations on the scope of potential recipients of legal aid.
Activities with this component:
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Events:
Round Table “Non-Governmental Organizations as Participants of the Legal Aid System” (Perm, 17 June, 2011)
Convocation of Project "Access to Justice" Coordination Board (Moscow, 23 May, 2011)
New Book "Recommendations on the Operation of Legal Aid Centers"
Training "Burnout and Legal Aid" (St. Petersburg, 23 April, 2011)
Training "Right to a Fair Trial (article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms)" (St. Petersburg, 3 April, 2011)
Training "Conflict Resolution Skills and Effective Communication" (St. Petersburg, 26 February, 2011)
Training "Right to a Fair Trial: Standards of the European Court of Human Rights and Monitoring their Observation" (St. Petersburg, 25 February, 2011 and Perm, 2 March, 2011)
Experts of the Institute presented the Project on Access to Justice results in the working meeting of the Ministry of Justice (Moscow, 24 February, 2011)
Round table "Legal Aid for the Poor in Social Security Cases" (St. Petersburg, 29 January, 2011)
“Legal Aid in Civil Matters – Models of Interaction between the State and Civil Society: International and Russian Experience” (Moscow, 3-4 December, 2010)
Training “European Convention on Human Rights. Some Challenges in Lodging an Application to the European Court of Human Rights” (St. Petersburg, 23 October, 2010)
Supervision Mission of the World Bank (Moscow, 27 September, 2010)
Seminar "European Court of Human Rights Case-Law and the Russian Legal System. Lodging an Application to the Court" (Perm, 23-24 September, 2010)
Training "Primary Legal Aid" (St. Petersburg, 11 September, 2010)
Seminar "Legal Challenges of the Housing Law: Eviction, Contracts, and Utilities" (Perm, 31 August, 2010)
Convocation of the Working Group of Coordination Board Project "Access to Justice" (Moscow, 1 July, 2010)
Round table "Practical Aspects of Access to Justice in Perm Region" (Perm, 10 June, 2010)
Round table "Legal Aid to the Juveniles: Current Challenges and Perspectives for the Future Development" (Gamovo village, Perm region, 9 June, 2010)
Round table on the Project on Access to Justice (St.Petersburg, 22 May, 2010)
Round table "Legal Aid as Main Social Guarantee of Effective Rights’ Enjoyment" (Perm, 29 April, 2010)
Round table "The First Results and Perspectives for the Project Implementation" (Moscow, 26 April, 2010)
Roundtable “Provision of legal aid to juveniles: problems and perspectives” (Saint-Petersburg, 17 April, 2010)
Supervision Mission of the World Bank (15-24 March 2010, Moscow, St.Petersburg and Perm)
Round table "Legal Aid as Main Social Guarantee of Effective Rights’ Enjoyment" (St.Petersburg, 29 January, 2010)
Seminar "Accumulation of Information and Analysis of Legal Aid Centers Operation" (in Perm Region) (Perm, 28 October, 2009)
Seminar "Accumulation of Information and Analysis of the work of the Legal Aid Centers (in Leningrad region)" (St. Petersburg, 21 October, 2009)
The Conference "Legal Aid in Russia: Implementation Challenges" (Moscow, 6-7 October, 2009)
Seminars "Informing people on free legal consulting availabilities" (on July 31 in Saint Petersburg; on August 6 in Perm)
Training sessions "Practical issues of legal aid provision for the poor" (on 17 June in St.Petersburg; on 22 June in Perm)
Round table "The Prospects and Opportunities for Legal Aid in Russia" (on 28 May in Moscow)
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