The Chairman of the UNBA's specialized committee commented on the trends of the FLA reform

In 2024, the Ministry of Justice continued to reorganize regional and local free legal aid centers by consolidating structures. The general trend of reform is the creation of interregional centers whose powers extend to several regions.

This was pointed out by Oksana Kadenko, Chairman of the Ukrainian National Bar Association's Committee on Legal Aid, during a thematic event at the Higher School of Advocacy.

The reform of free legal aid centers is carried out in accordance with the order of the Ministry of Justice dated 08.05.2023 No. 1733/5 «Issues of optimization of the free legal aid system». The speaker noted that, unfortunately, this reform is being carried out without taking into account the opinion of the bar. The position of officials is that this is an internal issue of the Coordination Center for Legal Aid Provision and lawyers are concerned only with the organization of cooperation with the relevant structures.

Transition processes took some time, during which there was a period of instability and lack of responsible persons, O. Kadenko noted. Nevertheless, today relations have returned to normal. The newly established centers demonstrate certain positive trends in their work. However, it is difficult to assess the effectiveness of the Coordination Center's activities. As well as the existence of an economic effect. Approximate estimates will be possible only after the publication of the 2024 report.

However, the head of the UNBA committee noted that it is already clear that the restructuring also has certain problems. For example, the remoteness of the centers creates obstacles for lawyers' reporting. At the same time, the electronic reporting system has not been implemented, and attempts to do so have been extremely unsuccessful. Access to the management is difficult, and the Telegram channel has no feedback. In addition, the enlargement of the structure has increased the time for reviewing reports, and the practice of compiling consolidated reports has spread.

However, according to O. Kadenko, there is reason to hope that these problems will be resolved. After all, a certain dialog is now being established between lawyers and the leadership of the FLA system.