Celebrating new opportunities! – was a motto of celebration of Europe Day on May 7 in Tbilisi. In order to mark this day, the EU representation together with the embassies of the EU member states and other partner organizations, carried out celebration party in Rike Park. This year, Legal Aid Service took part in the celebration for the first time.
During this special day, information and entertainment activities took place in Euro Village which was organized in Rike Park. The guests were able to get introduced with projects financed by the EU, among them projects implemented in justice sector.
Legal Aid Service also had its presence with its information corner at the celebration venue. The Service is actively involved in implementation of the EU-UN joint project – “Enhancing Access to Justice and Development of a Child-Friendly Justice System in Georgia”. The Service lawyers explained accessibility criteria to the citizens who were interested how to receive a state provided free legal aid and distributed brochures containing information on various legal issues.
The joint initiative of the European Union (EU) and United Nations “Enhancing Access to Justice and Development of a Child-friendly Justice System in Georgia”, with a budget of Euro 3.3 million, aims to consolidate the independence, professionalism and efficiency of the judiciary and strengthen access to justice through the creation of a more effective system of justice for children based on a dedicated regulatory framework and implementation mechanism, improved institutional capacities of the Ministry of Justice and other major justice stakeholders and the greater independence and effectiveness of the legal profession and legal aid system with greater use of alternative dispute resolution mechanisms.
Europe Day, held on 9 May every year, celebrates peace and unity in Europe. The date marks the anniversary of the historical 'Schuman declaration'. At a speech in Paris in 1950, Robert Schuman, the then French foreign minister, proposed the creation of a European Coal and Steel Community. The ECSC (founding members: France, West Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg) was the first of a series of supranational European institutions that would ultimately become today's "European Union" which nowadays unites 28 European member states.