"You have the right!" – free legal aid promotion campaign

The campaign for the promotion of the free legal aid mechanism in Serbia, under the slogan "You have the right!", was presented to the local media and the public in Niš. As part of the project activities of the „Facility Supporting Rule of Law in Serbia“, cofinanced by EU and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and implemented by GIZ, the campaign was jointly initiated and created in partnership with the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Public Administration and Local Self-Government of the Republic of Serbia and aims to raise awareness of the mechanism of free legal aid.

The Law on Free Legal Aid was adopted in 2019 with the aim of enabling every person, especially the most vulnerable citizens, access to justice and legal protection. Although the free legal aid system was established at the end of 2019, there is still poor information among citizens about the existence of the right to free legal aid and numerous weaknesses in the implementation of the law.

A phased implementation of the campaign "You have the right!" is planned over a longer period of time, with a focus on local self-government units in which it is legally possible to exercise the right to free legal aid, along with raising capacities - field trainings of officials authorized for budgeting and approving applications.