The Board and the Supervisory Board of the Legal Development Network supported the plan of the Network activities for 2019

Publication date: February 23, 2019

Members of the Board and the Supervisory Board of the Legal Development Network (LDN) discussed the preliminary results of the LDN activities in 2018, as well as the draft of its plans for the current year.

The meeting took place on February 2, 2019 in the Pravokator legal club, Kyiv. Board members Natalia Bimbirayte, Vitaliy Babyka, Mykhailo Bardyn and Sergiy Koshel took part in it. Also, members of the LDN Supervisory Board Igor Abramiuk (Development director of the Association of amalgamated territorial communities), Roman Martynovsky (expert of the Regional Center for Human Rights) and Oleksandr Pavlichenko (Executive Director of the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union) visited it.

The event was also attended by Iryna Fedorovych, coordinator of the Project “Without Borders” of the Social Action Centre, Roman Romanov, director of the “Human Rights and Justice” Program of the International Renaissance Foundation, Olga Рalchenko, coordinator of this program, and Yurii Sverba , the state expert of the expert group on access to justice of the Directorate of Human Rights, access to justice and legal awareness of the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine.

Executive director of the Legal Dvelopment Network Yevhen Poltenko spoke on the results of the LDN‘s work in 2018. Following this, the meeting attendees reviewed the draft report on the implementation of the operational and financial plan of the Network for 2018. Following the results of the discussion, they voted to recommend the General meeting of the Network to approve the draft.

The participants also discussed issues related to existing challenges and opportunities for improving the work of the union. Thus, Natalia Bimbirayte, Chairman of the LDN’s Board, emphasized the need to refine the system of case management of the Network. Mykhailo Bardyn added that there are difficulties in entering data into the system. Yevhen Poltenko offered the working group on support and development of online services and resources to explore the problem issues and identify ways to address them. The meeting participants supported this proposal.

Igor Abramiuk, development director of the Association of Amalgamated Territorial Communities: “Frankly, I envy the organizational capacity of the Legal Development Network. We, the Association, are a real force, but a force that is organizationally and structurally still in the process of becoming. And we really need cooperation with the organizations that have already completed this stage and which can even provide some kind of help to us, especially at the regional level. We can fill our cooperation with the LDN with content that will be useful for us and for you.”

Roman Romanov expressed the idea of creating a system of joint trainings for the LDN and its partners, as well as the development of a joint certification system in their conduct. In this regard, in his opinion, the use of resources of Pravokator legal clubs can be very promising.

Yurii Sverba, state expert of the Expert group on access to justice, Directorate of human rights, access to justice and legal awareness of the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine: “Our main goal is to simplify access to justice for everyone, to provide legal assistance to people. Why do not we combine our efforts to play according to the same rules? It has happened in Ukraine that the public sector has always been a step ahead of the state system. Currently, the strategic goal of the state system of free legal aid is the legal education, the departure from the targeting of legal aid and the strengthening of legal capacity. This is already successfully implemented by the Legal Development Network. The LDN can also help develop the concept of an independent provider of community-based legal aid.”

Roman Martynovsky noted that the development of communities is a characteristic feature of the Legal Development Network, which distinguishes it from other legal aid providers; this component, in his opinion, should be given priority.

Iryna Fedorovych also emphasized the importance of working with communities. In this regard, she suggested that the Network report for 2018 should put more emphasis on this.

In addition, the meeting participants decided to recommend the General meeting of the Network to approve the Operational and Financial Plans of the LDN for 2019. In order to finalize these documents, LDN member organizations should submit their financial plans to the Executive directorate of the Legal Development Network. The attendees also supported the proposal that, before the next General meeting, the Executive directorate should prepare draft amendments to the Standards of the LDN, which would regulate the procedures and calendar for the preparation of financial plans and reports of the Network and the members of the Network in particular.

Author: Sergiy Rybak, Communications Manager, LDN