Back Citizens in Skopje, Bitola, and Shtip to receive Primary Free Legal Aid at the Civil Registry Offices

North Macedonia 31 October 2025
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Citizens in Skopje, Bitola, and Shtip to receive Primary Free Legal Aid at the Civil Registry Offices

As of today, citizens of Skopje, Bitola, and Shtip can receive primary legal aid services at the Civil Registry Offices.

Three mobile teams, composed of representatives from civil society organisations authorised to provide free legal aid as well as legal clinic students, were established to offer direct assistance to citizens at these locations. This initiative, supported by the European Union and the Council of Europe in collaboration with the OSCE Mission to Skopje, aims to enhance access to justice by ensuring that vulnerable and marginalised individuals, especially members of the Roma community, can receive timely legal support when needed. It also seeks to strengthen the capacities of future legal professionals and civil society representatives in delivering free legal aid.

The teams, trained during October, began their work today. They will operate twice a week according to the following schedule:

During the opening hours, citizens can receive information about the procedures for obtaining civil documentation and about the free legal aid services available to them. They can also ask specific questions directly to the legal experts in the teams and receive detailed guidance on where and how to access free legal aid.

User-friendly informational materials will be distributed, covering key topics such as how to obtain free legal aid as well as information on civil documentation, domestic violence, property rights, anti-discrimination, and social protection.

By embedding legal support within existing public institutions, this initiative makes access to justice more consistent and accessible for citizens. The involvement of CSOs and students further contributes to building the capacities of future legal professionals and civil society actors, ensuring sustainability and effectiveness of free legal aid also for the future.

These initiative is organised in the framework of the European Union and Council of Europe joint action “Towards a Consolidated and More Efficient Free Legal Aid (FLA) System in North Macedonia” (part of the Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Türkiye) and the OSCE Mission in Skopje, in close co-operation with the Ministry of Justice of North Macedonia, the Civil Registry Office and the Ministry of Digital Transformation

Work in this thematic area focuses on prisons and police (including human rights in policing, healthcare in prisons and safeguards against torture and ill-treatment), human rights standards in the judiciary (focusing on enhancing the application of case-law of the European Court of Human Rights), migration issues, the efficiency of justice systems (with a focus on analysing judicial statistics to optimise court administrations) and/or legal co-operation (which concentrates on increasing the individual independence of judges and prosecutors and the accountability of the judicial system).

Actions under theme I: Strengthening justice

*This designation is without prejudice to positions on status, and is in line with UNSCR 1244 and the ICJ Opinion on the Kosovo Declaration of Independence.