Promising practice examples from other EU countries Promising practices from Luxembourg If the applicant is a child, entitlement to legal aid is granted independently of the parents’ financial situation or other members of the household, without prejudice to the right of the State to request the reimbursement of the expenses incurred for legal aid for the child from a father or mother possessing sufficient means. In emergency cases, temporary allowance of legal aid may be assigned without further formality by the Chairman of the Bar. Promising practices from Netherlands Anyone who is assigned legal aid must pay a contribution in proportion to their income. Legal aid lawyers have to obtain a minimum of 20 training points per year to maintain professional competence (10 of which must be obtained for the registered legal area), in addition to initial entry training requirements. There are three quality assessment forms of structured feedback that lawyers have to attend (8 hours per year), namely: intervision (periodic discussion in a group of lawyers practising the same legal area under the supervision of an expert to deal with dilemmas about their own functioning, daily practice or legal practice), peer review (structured assessment of a lawyer’s files by a reviewer with expertise on the same field of law), and structured inter-collegial consultation to exchange ideas on day-to-day practice related to legal and non-legal aspects of the work under the guidance of a supervisor. Promising practices from Finland The legal aid system in Finland is known as a mixed model in which legal aid services are provided by both public and private service providers. A person entitled to state-funded legal aid can thus choose between being represented by a private lawyer or by a public legal aid lawyer who is employed by a public legal aid office. The Ministry of Justice is responsible for the overall management and supervision of the legal aid offices. Key takeaways The above mentioned examples of promising practices existing in different EU countries show that, in order to set up functioning and effective legal aid systems, it is essential that public authorities and relevant stakeholders do not perceive legal aid as a mere cost or burden for the State, but as a right that has to be protected in order for the rest of the procedural guarantees to be effective. Sensitive legislators can achieve to make national legal frameworks compliant with EU and international standards. In this sense, the role of national courts in the interpretation of the scope of the right to legal aid is indispensable in fostering its protection, including their possibility to submit questions for a preliminary ruling from the EU Court of Justice on the interpretation of the Directive on legal aid. Lawyers are also crucial in the development of effective legal aid systems that necessarily build on motivated and trained professionals, aware of the importance of the role they play in ensuring the procedural safeguards to which suspects and accused persons are entitled to. Bar associations are well placed to engage in advocacy efforts with public authorities, given that their members have the knowledge of the needs of the suspects and accused persons they assist, as well as the awareness of the obstacles they face when providing their professional services. Thus, they should be in a position to give thorough indications on what specific aspects of the system need to be improved and how. Advocacy efforts and legal reforms on legal aid must in any case take into consideration how all procedural rights are interlinked. Isolated strategies cannot achieve the goal to ensure fair, equal and effective criminal justice systems based on the rule of law, as demanded by international and European standards. Legal aid is granted in this dual system on the basis of the applicant’s available means. Legal aid lawyers’ hourly fee is 110 €. The legal aid national chat service provides general advice on legal matters. It is available in Finnish, as well as in Swedish and English one day per week. Legal aid offices offer more holistic legal services. The emphasis is put on developing e-services and remote services, and on people being proactive in identifying their legal problems at an earlier stage.69 In addition, they have financial and debt counsellors in house, who can review the person´s overall financial situation, assist them in planning finances and drawing up debt settlement proposals for creditors.70 Public legal aid offices also tend to cooperate with other professionals and services so that the person gets all the help they need. 69. Antti Rissanen, Legal Aid in Finland, in Legal Aid in the Nordic Countries Flaws in the Welfare States and Challenging Power, 2017. 70. The Ministry of Justice, Finland, National Report Template, ILAG Sydney 2021, 21 May 2021. 20 21