Programme: Good Governance

There are several main prerequisites that oriented the project activities towards activating the structures of the civil society for participation in the processes for modernization of the judicial system in the Smolyan region:
- The relative remoteness and difficult accessibility of the population to the regional center, where the judicial institutions are concentrated. In half of the municipal centers there are no district courts, respectively offices and offices of specialists - freelance lawyers;
-High relative share of minority groups different in their mentality, religion, culture, mother tongue and ethnicity. These minority groups are characterized by relative closedness and weaker opportunities for social inclusion and inclusion in current social reforms;
- Intensive migration of qualified lawyers to major economic centers, creating a shortage of staff in the Justice sector;
- Lack of sufficient practices for the application of methods and techniques for out-of-court settlement of legal disputes and mediation;
The described situation presupposes the first activity to be oriented towards analysis and assessment of the deficits in the judicial system in the Smolyan region.
Based on this assessment, the possibilities of NGOs and professional organizations to overcome the identified imbalances will be revealed. The second activity will focus on the development of modern, digital, methodological information products - through which NGOs in the region will support judicial reform. Emphasis will be placed on feedback from citizens and businesses and stimulating the development of techniques and methods for out-of-court settlement of legal disputes. At the end there will be an information campaign for dissemination and multiplication of the achieved results.
The information campaign will be conducted in integration with social networks and with the participation of all stakeholders - local NGOs and professional organizations working in the judiciary.