Lithuania

II. Objectives and Measures

Objective 3: ensuring access to effective remedy [page 8]

Understanding the importance of the protection of human rights and freedoms, the Government aims for effective protection of human rights and freedoms, and effective reaction regarding offences by the law-enforcement authorities. It also aims at establishing a legal framework that would help in ensuring effective ways for defending human rights, providing different possibilities for interested parties to solve disputes and, in certain circumstances, a provision of an effective state-guaranteed legal aid in judicial proceedings.

To achieve this goal, the Government is implementing the following measures:

A. lmplemented measures [page 9]

I . lmprovement of procedures for providing state-guaranteed /legal aid. The aim is to improve the procedures for providing state-guaranteed legal aid: to guarantee that !legal regulation of state-guaranteed !legal aid is carried out with respect to principles of equality, priority of peaceful settlement of disputes, quality and availability.

Measures and results of their implementation: on 1 January 2014, the new Law on State­ Guaranteed Legall Aid of the Republic of Lithuania carne into force. It grants broader possibilities to choose a lawyer to provide secondary state-guaranteed legal aid; assures a better control of the selected services; implements the ‘one stop’ principle for persons seeking secondary state-guaranteed legal aid; and foresees to ensure conciliatory mediation.