Moldovan Citizens to Obtain Right to Free Ex Officio Lawyers

The Republic of Moldova will ensure its citizens the right to free-of-charge legal assistance. The Parliament approved on June 2, in first reading the Law on state-guaranteed juridical assistance. According to Nicolae Esanu, the deputy minister of Justice, the goal of this law is to set the legal framework for ensuring equal access to juridical assistance for all persons, by organizing the system of state-guaranteed assistance, and as well eliminating the economic obstacles regarding the access to justice. He mentioned that, although the legislation stipulates the cases when the presence of the defender within penal and civil cases is compulsory, still a coordinated and coherent system on this issue doesn’t exist. Several opposition MPs noticed some shortcomings of the draft. Especially the fact that the law stipulates primary juridical assistance for all the citizens, fact that could trouble the activity of the lawyers because of the big number of cases, was mentioned. They proposed to include as beneficiaries of free juridical assistance the socially-disadvantaged categories of persons. The MP Vladimir Filat referred to the necessity of adjusting this Law with the Law on Lawyer’s profession. The project includes 37 articles, grouped in 5 chapters, which set the institutional framework of the free juridical assistance guaranteed by the state.