Representatives from 15 Municipalities in North Macedonia enhance their skills on anti-discrimination and access to free legal aid

Two capacity building sessions for Community Facilitators and Municipal Administration from North Macedonia, were held in Skopje focusing on antidiscrimination and combating hate speech, including an informative session on free legal aid services.

35 participants from 15 municipalities, participated in the training organised in the framework of EU and Council of Europe joint programmes “Horizontal Facility II” and “Romacted”

David Tasevski, psychologist, and trainer on anti-discrimination, introduced the participants to the rights and legal tools to prevent and protect against discrimination, by defining stereotypes and prejudices as the roots of discrimination, as well as the line between freedom of expression and hate speech as a common occurrence in society. The participants had the opportunity to discuss all these issues trough real examples.

Elena Georgievska, consultant of the Council of Europe for free legal aid, shared with the participants important aspects surrounding the rights and conditions arising from the free legal aid system, pointing out the challenges in the system that should be taken into account in order to effectively use the rights. At the same time, information was shared about all primary and secondary legal aid providers including the 34 Regional Offices of the Ministry of Justice, the 15 authorised associations in the territory of North Macedonia and the 6 authorised legal clinics in the North Macedonia.

These trainings were conducted as a joint initiative of the EU and the Council of Europe programme "Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Turkey 2019-2022", and its respective actions "Promotion of diversity and equality in North Macedonia" and "Support for better access to better quality services for free legal aid in North Macedonia" together with ROMACTED Programme (phase 2) and its support organisation ROMALITICO, in co-operation with the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy - the Resource Centre for gender-responsive policy making and budgeting.