Advocacy for implementation of Anticorruption Legal Advice Center in Georgia: Czech experience

The project was a joint initiative of Transparency International in the Czech Republic and Georgia and included several other Georgian partners – International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy, Georgian Young Lawyers Association, Georgian Young Economists Association, Civil Society Institute, Economic Policy and Research Center, Boell Foundation, Civitas Georgika.

Through its Anti-Corruption Legal Advice Centre (ALAC), TI Georgia advocated on citizens' behalf and raised their awareness of legal rights and protections. The Legal Advice Centre in Georgia opened in 2009. Since TI Czech Republic had several years of experience in operating a similar centre, the project was aimed at exchanging experiences and lessons learned between the two TI chapters, helped to further improve the services and consultations TI Georgia provided and engaged other leading Georgian NGOs and journalists into the fight against corruption.

The project included series of training sessions, e-mail and personal consultation and couching. As a result of the activities, TI Georgia is fully professionally prepared to provide a legal aid to citizens who complain about corruption misconduct by public administration and use the necessary legal instruments. Number of Georgian journalists was also exposed to the advantage of cooperation with NGOs in enhancing transparency and accountability of local public administration. And lastly, number of Georgian civil servants got trained in work of modern democratic civil service and in ways of ensuring high level of transparency and accountability.