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Annual Report 2004

Legal Education Program

The objective of the Legal Program is to initiate and support the increase of public awareness and promote information on legal issues; to develop a law-abiding culture in Poland; and to assist citizens in gaining access to legal knowledge, in identification and application of the legal protection tools available to them.

During 2004, we facilitated the application of legal instruments protecting individual interests, and supporting citizens in claiming and executing their rights. We prioritized projects of practical value that provided effective solutions to specific problems of everyday life and focused on initiatives that would help people find their way amongst rules and procedures often perceived by them as confusing, and develop their knowledge and skills that would enable them to use the legal provisions to their best advantage. It was important for us to ensure that the projects sponsored under the Legal Education Program were implemented in cooperation with local governments and non-governmental organizations, and had a long-term strategy in terms of further development and funding.

Our partners were mainly non-governmental organizations, since they played a crucial role in the application of, and adherence to, legal provisions by both individuals and public bodies in Poland. In 2004 these included the Alliance of Citizens’ Advice Bureaus Association, University Legal Clinics Foundation, and Iustitia Judges Association.

As part of our activities aimed at increasing access to legal knowledge and information, we continued to support University Legal Clinics and Citizens’ Advice Bureaus. The main aim of these organizations is to provide free and impartial information on legal issues, as well as professional advice to individuals facing serious problems. In the case of the Citizens’ Advice Bureaus, this task is carried out by experts who underwent special training; in Legal Clinics the advisors are law students supervised by university teachers or representatives of the legal profession with appropriate experience. In 2004 we awarded grants to 27 Citizens’ Advice Bureaus, to the University Legal Clinics Foundation established in 2002, as well as to the University Legal Clinics at the University of Śląsk in Katowice and the University of Wrocław.

In addition, we supported activities of the organizations providing legal assistance and aid to people facing serious problems: the Association of Women and their Families of Zabrze that conducts an advisory service for women, Itaka Foundation for the Assistance to those Affected by the Problem of Missing Persons, Homo Homini Foundation, which provides counselling through the Internet. Considerable attention was given to educational projects dealing with various legal issues and human rights. We supported groups for whom legal information was of primary importance, such as the disabled, ex-convicts or youth.

We continued a project entitled Citizen at Court, involving the establishment of information desks at courthouses offering user-friendly, straightforward information about basic legal issues and provided subsidies towards the publication of advice manuals prepared by non-governmental organizations, such as the Locomotive Society for the Support of Child and Family of Łódż, Mederi Foundation and the Center for Women’s Rights.

In collaboration with the Iustitia Polish Judges Association and the Helsinki Human Rights Foundation, we continued our Journalist in Court sessions for judges and journalists covering court trials. The purpose of those sessions is to ensure mutual recognition and better understanding of working conditions of both proffesional groups, establish contact, and exchange experience and opinion. The ultimate goal is to set up conditions for better public understanding of work performed by the judiciary thanks to competent and reliable media information. Meetings were attended by journalists of the regional and local media, and by judges working in the area. The agenda of all meetings involved an open discussion around topics concerning media-courthouse relations, and mock court trials with roles swapped: journalists took on relevant courthouse parts (judges, prosecutors, attorneys, defendants, and witnesses), whereas judges were responsible for drafting press, radio, and TV materials describing the “trial”. In 2004 sessions were held in Wrocław, Toruń and Opole.

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