A memorandum for the protection of victims of domestic violence was signed at the Ministry of Justice

16-03-2023 16:00

A memorandum for the protection of victims of domestic violence was signed in the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of the Interior, the National Legal Aid Office and the bar councils to which Regional Counselling Centres function, signed today a Memorandum of Cooperation and Partnership for the timely protection of victims from domestic violence.

The signing of the memorandum was a consequence of the good results of one of the NLAO activities under a project financed by the 2014-2021 NFM. Namely, the established coordination mechanism between the institutions in the regions of Veliko Tarnovo, Varna and Stara Zagora for cooperation in assisting and protecting victims of domestic violence.

The deployment of this mechanism at the national level foresees that in every identified case of a victim of domestic violence, the authorities of the Ministry of the Interior will inform the latter of the possibility of using free legal aid and, after an expressed desire and assist her in contacting the bar council in the relevant town.

Bar councils, in turn, will publish a list of on-call lawyers specializing in domestic violence and assign a lawyer from that list to counsel the victim. Bar councils will provide a lawyer on duty for every report from the Ministry of the Interior for any identified victim of domestic violence, who will visit the place of the institution where the victim is located (Regional Police Department, crisis centre, medical facility, etc.).

The bodies of the Ministry of the Interior, if necessary and within the framework of their legal powers, will assist the appointed lawyers to ensure protection of the victims of domestic violence.

The signing of today's Memorandum shows that the Bulgarian state has the will, interacting with the legal professionals, to solve this very serious problem in society, Minister of Justice Krum Zarkov said.

The Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Internal Affairs Ivan Demerdzhiev defined the document as an important and essential step for interaction against domestic violence.

"NLAO has been implementing for nearly 2 years the "Improving access to justice for persons living below the poverty line with a special focus on women, children and the Roma community" project, financed by the 2014-2021 NFM. Thanks to the active interaction of the institutions in the three pilot areas of the project, the active role of lawyers in the initial counselling of the victims was brought out.