The Polish Pro Bono Centre

Further to Penny Blair’s 6 July 2009 post on pro bono clearinghouses and the fruitful thread that followed, the example of the Polish Pro Bono Centre can illustrate how broad activities can a clearinghouse roll out to strategically mainstream pro bono. The Polish Pro Bono Centre does not only work as focal point between NGOs and law firms. It is also active in promoting the culture of pro bono and in amending the legal framework in order to facilitate lawyers' commitment to pro bono.

The Centre is involved in granting the annual Pro Bono Lawyer Award, established by the Polish Legal Clinics Foundation. It has been lobbying for exemption of pro bono legal advice from VAT. In turn, if we look on the side of the NGOs, the lawyers who cooperate with the Centre gave five workshops to over 150 NGO managers on the legal framework of the non-profit sector.

The Centre is a young (operating since 2008) and small entity, but it is already quite well-known. Mind that it is a fruit of a discussion accompanying the signing of the Pro Bono Declaration in mid-2007. The signing ceremony was hosted by the Polish Constitutional Tribunal with participation of some important representatives of the country's legal world. “This Declaration - expressed Filip Czernicki of the Legal Clinics Foundation during the event - is inspired by the Polish legal community’s long professional tradition of public service, and affirms the critical role of pro bono practitioners in ensuring fair and equal access to justice among all segments of society.” (www.probonoinst.org/wire/09207-8.pdf, The Pro Bono Wire, Sept. 2007) The same can be said about the Centre, and I find its ability to build on and to develop the pro bono tradition a useful hint for some current West-European initiatives aiming at launching national clearinghouses.

Interestingly, the Centre has been constituted by the Polish Legal Clinics Foundation, which underlines the link between the training of young lawyers and the practice of more mature professionals.

For more information, consult:
- www.centrumprobono.pl/en/
- The Polish Legal Clinics Foundation/Lawyer Pro Bono
- The Pro Bono Wire, Sept. 2007 (the text of the Polish Pro Bono Declaration)

Posted by Jacek Kowalewski
University of Warsaw graduate
Pro bono activist in Poland and Italy

A contribution of thoughts in regard to some shortcomings in relation to translation and interpretation

Assurances that the principle of equality of arms is upheld in criminal proceedings in other jurisdictions than our own is fundamental for common trust. Based on the Swedish experience, an important source of problem in mutual recognition-based cooperation is the lack of sufficient guarantees of procedural rights in domestic systems. Deficiencies of this kind in many national systems and the lack of common minimum procedural standards regarding the protection of individual rights in criminal proceedings give rise to hesitation and lack of a sufficient basis for mutual trust and recognition.

Already in 2004 the European Commission, within its draft Framework decision on certain procedural rights applying in criminal matters throughout the European Union, therefore put focus inter alia on the access to interpretation and translation. The reason was quite simple; a suspect must know and be able to understand the suspicions and charges raised against him or her. Notwithstanding that this must be considered as a “basic right” common for every country based on the rule of law, the work of a common understanding within the European Union on the importance and need of translation and interpretation was buried for many years of political reasons.

Recently, however, the The Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe (CCBE) has published a manifesto calling for ‘The right kind of justice for Europe’ in the light of the current drafting of the next five-year Strategic Agenda for Freedom, Security and Justice in the European Union, the so-called ‘Stockholm programme’.

One of the central parts of this Manifesto is the need for introduction of minimum common procedural safeguards for the right of suspects and defendants in criminal proceedings. One of the fundaments of these minimum procedural safeguards is access to free interpretation and translation, ensuring that persons, including relatives of the suspect, who are not capable of understanding or following the proceedings receive appropriate means for this.

Today there is not only lack of a minimum procedural right in respect of translation and interpretation in Europe and elsewhere. It is also, when such interpretation and translation can be disposed, often a questionable quality of the translation or interpretation services rendered. Furthermore, the defence counsels often have to bear the costs of interpretation and translation. In many countries this is a cost paid by the state only in case of acquittal. Hence, lawyers often bear the economic risk of having their clients’ justified legal interest and rights provided for. Pro bono work becomes a prerequisite of the fulfilment of minimum procedural rights.

Obviously, this must change. The CCBE Manifesto is a good start and my sincere hope and belief is that the Swedish Presidency of the European Union for the second half of 2009 succeeds in its declared efforts to pull a legislation on the right of interpretation and translation through the European legislative mills.

Let us at least have common minimum rights on the suspect’s understanding of the suspicion, and let it be at the expense of the states and not the lawyers.


Posted by Anne Ramberg
Secretary General of the Swedish Bar Association
IBA Pro bono and Access to Justice Committee