How should be monitored the quality of legal aid rendered on civil and administrative cases – this was a topic of the discussion between the representatives of Legal Aid Service (LAS) during the roundtable which took place in the Hotel Tbilisi Ambassador, on November 5, 2016. The event was held in the framework of the EU-UN joint program “Enhancing Access to Justice and Development of a Child-friendly Justice System in Georgia”.
The roundtable was led by the British scholar – Alan Paterson, a director of Centre for Professional Legal Studies of the University of Strathclyde. He talked about quality assurance tools, namely, Peer Review methodology through which the public lawyers check the quality of the service delivered by their colleagues. The participants of the roundtable also discussed the criteria against which the quality of advocacy service on civil and administrative cases will be evaluated.
The citizens of Georgia receive the free advocacy service on civil and administrative cases since 2015 after the amendments were made to the Law of Georgia on Legal Aid. In order to ensure the high quality of the service, EU and UNDP support LAS to develop and implement the quality assurance system in the fields of civil and administrative law.
It is noteworthy that LAS has implemented the pilot quality monitoring system in criminal law field in 2016.