Some citizens of Serbia missed the deadline to appeal decisions concerning their social rights because they did not know they were entitled to free legal aid or were unable to obtain it. The A 11 Initiative drew attention to such cases, and the Commissioner for the Protection of Equality referred to them in an official recommendation to local governments issued in June 2025.
Imagine what this means in practice. A person applies for social assistance because they do not have enough money to meet their basic needs. They receive an unfavourable decision. To challenge it, they must understand what the document says, which deadline applies, whom to contact and how to explain the grounds for their appeal. If they make a mistake or miss the deadline, the consequences can be serious.
For someone familiar with the law, this is an administrative procedure. For a person encountering the legal system for the first time, it may be a document several pages long, written in language they can barely understand.
This brings us to a question that is rarely asked when we talk about human rights: what are our rights really worth if we lack the money, knowledge or assistance to protect them?
In theory, we are all equal before the law. In practice, people enter the courtroom from very different positions. One arrives with a team of lawyers; another brings documents they have tried to prepare themselves. One can finance proceedings for years, while the other is already wondering how to pay a court fee or cover the income lost by missing work.
Both have the right to seek judicial protection.
But their ability to exercise that right is not equal.
When You Are Too Poor to Afford a Lawyer
Article 67 of Serbia's Constitution guarantees the right to legal assistance. The Law on Free Legal Aid has also been in application since October 2019. It provides that certain categories of citizens can obtain legal advice, assistance in preparing submissions, representation or defence without paying a fee.
The right primarily covers people who meet the conditions for financial social assistance or child benefits, as well as those who would fall into such financial circumstances if they had to pay for legal aid. The law also provides specific grounds for certain groups, including children in prescribed proceedings, victims of domestic violence seeking legal protection, persons with disabilities, asylum seekers and people affected by forced eviction. Assistance is not automatically available for every type of dispute.
On paper, this is a substantial mechanism.
In reality, there is a group of people discussed much less often. They work, earn some wages and sometimes own property, but simply do not have enough money to initiate and sustain legal proceedings. Some may meet the legal requirements because the cost of legal assistance would push them into financial hardship. Others fall outside the prescribed criteria, even though hiring a lawyer would seriously disrupt their household budget.
This is where economic inequality becomes legal inequality.
A worker who believes they were unlawfully dismissed may find themselves facing an employer who can afford legal representation. A tenant challenging the conduct of a landlord must decide for herself whether to try to protect her rights. Someone who believes they have experienced discrimination may give up because they do not know how to prove it and are afraid of the costs of losing the case.
Of course, a lawyer is not necessary in every proceeding. Simpler legal mechanisms exist, and citizens can take legal action on their own in certain cases. Still, the formal possibility of representing oneself means little when the case is complicated and the opposing party has significantly greater resources.
As early as 1979, in Airey v. Ireland, the European Court of Human Rights found that a woman who could not afford a lawyer had, because of the complexity of the judicial separation proceedings, effectively been denied access to a court. The Court did not establish a general right to a free lawyer in every civil dispute. It found that, in certain circumstances, the state must ensure effective access to the courts, which may require legal aid.
That distinction between a formal right and its actual accessibility remains one of the central questions of human rights.
A System That Exists but Is Difficult to Access
The real accessibility of free legal aid is illustrated by a figure published by the Commissioner for the Protection of Equality in 2025. According to the Ministry of Justice's report for 2023, not a single application for free legal aid was submitted in 84 of the 202 recorded municipalities and cities. The records also include local government units in Kosovo.
That does not, by itself, prove that nobody in those communities needed legal assistance. It is far more likely that the number of applications does not reflect all the actual needs of the population. The Commissioner therefore recommended that local governments establish services where they do not exist and better inform citizens about their rights.
In May 2026, Dragiša Ćalić of the Lawyers' Committee for Human Rights, YUCOM, warned that, even seven years after the law began to be implemented, people who were entitled to free legal aid were still contacting the organisation without knowing they could receive it. He also pointed to financial problems faced by local governments, insufficient service capacity and the fact that only a small proportion of allocated funds had been used in the early years.
This is where a serious institutional paradox emerges.
The state establishes a right to help people who lack the means to obtain legal protection. Access to that right then depends on how well the local administration functions, how well citizens are informed and whether the municipality has enough staff and money.
The person who needs assistance most often has the least opportunity to research procedures, visit institutions or wait for them to coordinate with one another.
In its 2025 report on Serbia, the European Commission also warned of the need to increase financial support at the national level, strengthen the capacity of local governments to decide on applications and improve access to justice for women experiencing gender-based violence and discrimination.
The problem is therefore documented well enough that it can no longer be explained solely by individuals' lack of information.
Responsibility also lies with the institutions whose duty is to make the system accessible.
Poverty as a Barrier to Justice
Money also affects something much harder to measure: whether a person is willing to try to defend their rights at all.
If they expect the proceedings to drain them financially, they may never file a lawsuit. If they depend on wages paid by their employer, they may be afraid to start a dispute. If they are already dealing with debt, the cost of legal protection may seem like another risk they cannot afford to take.
Sometimes the other side does not even have to win in court. It is enough to know that the opponent cannot easily endure a lengthy proceeding.
This is particularly troubling when an individual is facing the state, a large company or an institution with a permanent legal department. Money is not used merely to pay lawyers. It buys time, expertise, preparation and the ability to continue proceedings.
A person with limited financial means must think about every additional expense.
Even when someone receives free legal aid, it is important to distinguish the costs of legal representation from other possible costs of proceedings. Free legal aid does not automatically mean exemption from all court fees and other expenses. Separate rules and exemption mechanisms exist for some of these costs.
That is why access to justice cannot be measured only by the number of lawyers entered in a register or the number of approved applications. We need to know whether people were able to initiate proceedings, whether they received appropriate assistance in time and whether financial pressure forced them to give up.
Otherwise, we may have an orderly administrative system that fails precisely the people for whom it was established.
So What Are Human Rights Worth?
Human rights do not lose their legal force because someone lacks money. They belong to that person regardless of their financial circumstances.
But between having a right and being able to exercise it lies an entire series of practical obstacles.
When we talk about human rights, we often cite international conventions, constitutional guarantees and laws. We speak far less often about people who cannot afford to initiate proceedings, who do not understand an official letter or who lose their right to appeal while trying to find someone who can help them.
Access to justice therefore cannot depend only on how well a law is written. It also depends on whether an ordinary person, without connections, legal education or substantial savings, can challenge someone who has violated their rights.
The Law on Free Legal Aid provides that applications are submitted to the competent municipal or city administration, in writing, orally for the record or electronically. No fee is charged for the application. The regular decision-making deadline is eight days, and in urgent cases, where irreparable harm or the expiry of a procedural deadline is imminent, three days. There is a right to appeal a rejected application to the Ministry of Justice.
This is important information that should be known to every citizen, especially those living on the poverty line.
Because there is something profoundly wrong with a society in which a person must understand the law just to discover that they have a right to free legal aid.
And there is something even more dangerous about a system in which a wealthier person can defend their interests for years, while a poorer person gives up before their case has even been considered.
Justice does not have to be free in every aspect to be accessible. But if the price of obtaining it determines who can fight for their rights, equality before the law remains a promise that some people cannot afford.
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