Advocacy and Legal Advice Centre

- Monitoring and reporting of ALAC cases -

Monitoring ALAC cases may bring added value

ALAC's implementation is easy to supervise considering the project's pillars: legal advice, education and advocacy. The quality of the legal advice activity – ALAC's output – depends very much on how the database is initially structured, and then updated and supervised throughout the process. Only ALAC's ability to produce genuine and precise reflections of the reported cases can give added value to the project and increase its educational and advocacy capacities.

ALAC requires socio-demographic information on the serviced

citizens:– gender

– age

– address

– education

– income

– employment

The output of the above data makes a profile of the citizens served by ALAC. It can generate several categories of target-groups for ALAC's education activities. Moreover, it can generate the best channels of communication to these groups. Also, ALAC will be able to identify media partners in line with the most qualified target-groups for educational activities.

ALAC registers data on citizens' encounter with ALAC:

– date of visit

– telephone

– E-mail

– postal address

The output of the above data makes a profile of the citizens served by ALAC. It can generate several categories of target-groups for ALAC's education activities. Moreover, it can generate the best channels of communication to these groups. Also, ALAC will be able to identify media partners in line with the most qualified target-groups for educational activities.

ALAC registers those public institutions/authorities associated with corrupt activites:– The judiciary– Healthcare system– Educational system– Customs– Fiscal administration– Police– Public administration– Public procurement– Privatization– Political parties– Control authorities etc

The output of the above data makes a profile of the sectors associated with corruption. It can also indicate where should one make specific interventions by means of educational and advocacy initiatives.

ALAC monitors legislation that is associated with the efficient or inefficient fight against corruption.

The output of the above data makes a profile of the pieces of legislation most associated with corruption. The identified legal weaknesses can be addressed by either/both advocacy or/and educational activities.

ALAC monitors the institutional level whereby corruption is reported.

The output of the above data makes a profile of the local or central institutional vulnerabilities. However, care should be taken as a single ALAC office in a country may provide an unrepresentative image thereof. More reliable data may be drawn from a wider network of ALAC offices in a country.

ALAC monitors those legal steps that citizens

approach before coming to the center.

The output of the above data makes a profile of citizens' activism against corruption. Civic activism against corruption may prove powerful motivational triggers to report cases.

ALAC registers the distinct assignment of cases within the

center. Citizens' complaints may bear the mark of the following decisions:– rejected – the case is not related to corruption or is already presenyted

in court

– accepted for revision and then rejected – further data denies corrupt activities

– under analysis – the case fits ALAC's mandate and needs further assessment

– submitted to the relevant authority – the case fits under ALAC's mandate and is submitted to the authority in charge

The output of the above data makes a profile of the civic and legal ability of citizens to report cases of corruption. It can also be interpreted as an indicator of ALAC's institutional performance.

ALAC monitors and registers the legal trajectory of the submitted cases at different institutions:– results are ranked as satisfactory– results are ranked as partially satisfactory– results are ranked as unsatisfactory – results unknown (by marking delays from the legal terms and inaction

according to the law)

Such data is difficult to collect. ALAC's experience shows that an important number of the serviced citizens do not communicate the good outcomes of their cases. Also, many citizens give up their case along the process. In such situations, the best solution is to sign a protocol with the authorities in charge wherein the latter agree to report all legal actions taken in the reported cases to ALAC. The received data can also serve at evaluating the impact of partnerships between ALACs and relevant public authorities.

ALAC registers the level of citizen satisfaction as

to ALAC's services:– quality of legal advice

– staff quality

– willingness to recommend ALAC to other person

ALAC registers the level of interest of its educational offer:– frequency of visits on ALAC's web page

– frequency and type of files downloaded from ALAC's web page

– frequency of information requests