Enhancing Access to Justice in North Macedonia

MHC has been providing monitoring of human rights in North Macedonia since the beginning of its work, while starting from 2015 this service has been established a special program and tailored to the needs of the vulnerable and marginalized groups in the society. Since then the sustainability of this program is one of the main priorities of MHC, therefore we have developed a sustainable program for provision of free legal aid with which this service remains active for all targeted groups aside from the available project funding. The free legal aid service has been recognized and utilized by a wide range of people in need, which is evident from the number of free legal aid requests we receive annually. The institutional monitoring system that will be devised and put in place with this project that will enable the Committee to actively participate in the policy making process among institutional beneficiaries. This will enable the organizations to timely and adequately react to certain omission by reluctant stakeholders, register irregularities, and provide its input-opinions, evidence based policy recommendations, etc. through its regular participation at national working groups and cooperation among all members of the implementation team. Therefore, this interplay allows for ensuring institutional sustainability in order to eliminate obstacles to access to justice and thus, to enhance he legal certainty of citizens.