Free legal aid in the context of the right of access to court

Abstract

The Constitution of the Republic of Serbia explicitly regulates that free legal aid shall be stipulated by the law. In a series of reports on the progress of the Republic of Serbia in the process of joining the EU, there are warnings about the unacceptably low quality level and efficiency of the judiciary, and indications that there is a need to regulate the legal aid system. Finally, this matter was regulated by enacting the Legal Aid Act of the Republic of Serbia, which came into force on 1st October 2019. In addition to the conceptual definition of legal aid, the paper analyzes the right of access to court as a constituent element of the right to a fair trial prescribed in Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which entails the right to legal aid. The regulation of legal aid at the national level has to meet the standards formulated at the European Union level as well as the standards formulated through the practice of the European Court of Human Rights. In that context, the paper analyzes the regulations and decisions, i.e. the widely recognized and accepted standards. The Legal Aid Act of the Republic of Serbia has been analyzed in the context of meeting these standards, especially in relation to the conditions for granting the right to legal aid and the circle of beneficiaries and providers of certain types of legal aid.

Keywords

• the right of access to court
• free legal aid
• european standards on free legal aid
• application of standards in the legislative process