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REPORT ON FREE LEGAL AID OFFERED BY AHC  
IN 
THE FRAMEWORK OF LEGAL CLINIC 
JANUARY-SEPTEMBER 2008 
  
 
1. Albanian Helsinki Committee (AHC), the first ever human rights organization for the 
protection of human rights and freedoms, since 2007 is implementing the “Free Legal 
Aid Clinic”, financed by Swedish Helsinki Committee. The main objective of the 
project is the better protection of vulnerable human rights groups of Albanian society, 
when their rights are violated by representatives of state institutions.  
 
2. The program is focused in three main groups as: the persons who are subjects of 
exercising of violence, inhuman and degrading treatments, by the police authorities, 
personnel of pre-trial detentions and prisons; persons who are subject of 
discrimination from employees of state institutions in general, persons who belongs to 
Roma minority and Egyptian community in particular, and persons who are restrained 
from the right to have a fair trial.  
 
3. During the period January – September 2008, AHC has treated 969 complaints
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presented by 437 complainants.  According the residence, the complaints have come 
from different zones of Albania. The most number of complaints have come from big 
cities with large population. According to the social status of the citizens, the 
complaints came from persons with free status, from detained persons in pre-trial 
detentions, prisoners who serve the sentence in the local prisons, from accompanied 
persons in the police commissariats.    
 
 
4. AHC has received complaints and requests in different ways such as:  citizens come 
to the AHC offices, letters, e-mail, telephone and taking complains during the 
monitoring missions. The monitoring missions are carried out to watch the respect of 
the rights of deprived liberty person’s rights (as detained persons, prisoners, 
accompanied persons), and Roma minority and Egyptian community. The 
observations have been planned and sporadic.  
 
5. Planned observations have been carried according the plan of monitoring where the 
areas /institution that will be observed, the period of observation and the persons who 
                                                 
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 The data are based on the number of complaints and not on the number of complainants. One person may 
has addressed more than one complaint during the year or in his complaint has presented more than one 
problem 
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will be monitored have been decided. Accompanying and detaining facilities in police 
commissariats, pre-trial detentions and local prisons, the regions where is present 
Roma minority and Egyptian community were areas of the monitoring missons 
during the period covered by this report. 
 
6. Sporadic monitoring missions have been carried during the whole period of January-
September 2008. These observations  have been necesary for verifications of the 
complaints that AHC received. 
   
7. The persons who have adressed the complaints to the AHC office during the period 
January-September 2008 mainly were: the monitoring gruops, who transmitted the 
complaints of the vulnerable groups who have not had the opportunity to bring their 
complaints to the AHC’s offices for different reasons as: deprived liberty, health and 
social-economic conditions, lack of information; victims themselves, mainly they  
have been with free status. AHC’s correspondents (Shkodër, Elbasan, Fier, Korçë and 
Gjirokastër) have transmitted the complaints of the citizens who don’t live in Tirana 
and have not the opportunity to come to the AHC’s offices; relatives of victims  who 
have brought complaints in behalf of the persons with deprived liberty. Organizations 
with whom AHC collaborates such as TLAS, ADRF, Sfinksi, ect also adresssed cases 
to the AHC. AHC used also information provided by media for taking the initiative to 
verify or to held a monitoring mission.   
 
8. Complaints regarding the treatment of the persons in pre-trial detentions and prisons 
have has as object violations of rights in pre-trial detentions and prisons, requests for 
transfering of complains for non-transfering the persons, complaints on ill-tratement 
from prisons personnel, complaints about the way the  personnel handled the  
conflicts between the co-prisoners/detained persons.  
 
9. During the period covered by this report, AHC has received complaints with object 
unfair actions from police authorities such as: unjustified detentions, unfair holding in 
the detention/accompanying facilities, staying above the terms provided by law, not-
notifying the persons about their rights in the moment of the detention/accompanying, 
bad conditions in the detention/accompanying facilities, exercising physical and 
physological violence from police effectives.  
 
10. The citizens complained also for the actions of prosecutor office. They claimed for 
unfair dismission of penal proceedings from prosecutor office, lack of information 
about the criminal proceedings, for ill-founded charges from prosecutor during the 
investigation process, not-admission of the accusations.   
 
11.  Regarding the justice system, the complaints were mainly for the unfair trial aspects 
such as: disclaimer of the rights to be defended by a lawyer, inequality of legal armies 
in penal process, not-notifying the family of the minor in penal process, lengthening 
the judicial process; claims for unfair sentences, claims for non-executions of judicial 
sentences from bailiff office, non-profiting of the witness status according to the law 
that exists in Albania. 
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12. AHC also treated complaints and requests in civil and administrative rights field 
regarding the non-taking the pension/economic assistance, unfair actions and non 
transparent procedures from central and local administrative authorities, claims for 
violence in family, divorce, claims for non registering of the children, proprietary 
issues, housing problems, employment, discrimination of children in schools, requests 
for more social programs for youth and elder,  the lack of health centers, ambulances, 
gardens and schools, infrastructure problems as; paving, lack of canalizations, lack of 
electricity, lack of drinking water, request for cleaning the surrounding where they 
live. 
 
13.  Complaints regarding the employments relations have as a subject the unfair 
dismissal from the job.  
 
14.  During the period January-September 2008, AHC offered free services such as 
assistance in compilation of the documentation, legal counseling, monitoring hearing 
sessions, addressing the problems to the state institutions and verifications.   
 
15. The communication with different state institutions, regarding the treatment of the 
complaints, has been correct. In general, they collaborate and respond to the requests 
of AHC. In serious cases of violations of rights, AHC has reacted publicly, expressing 
the concern for the noted violations as well as calling the state institutions to take the 
necessary steps for improving the situations.  
 
 


Report on free legal aid offered by AHC In the framework of legal clinic. January-September 2008

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