Tens of thousands of Romanians cannot currently access the court due to low incomes. Fundația pentru Apărarea Cetățenilor Împotriva Abuzurilor Statului (FACIAS) advocates for a change in the legislative framework to allow for effective public legal assistance, which is a valuable tool for low-income persons.
Many Romanians drop their lawsuits because they cannot afford the expenses entailed (court stamp taxes, lawyers' fees, judicial specialists, executors, and so on).
According to data collected by FACIAS from the Ministry of Justice, 31,561 requests for public legal aid were filed last year, but only 19,164 were approved. As a result, more than 10,000 people who asked for public legal aid but lacked the finances to file a lawsuit were unable to benefit from the stamp tax reduced rate, therefore their case was dismissed by the court.
According to last year's statistics, at least a third of those who require public legal assistance do not receive it, and one of the reasons is due to inadequate legislation . The normative act has not been revised since its release in 2008. Since then, the economy has changed drastically, and requires the alignment of legislative provisions with actual reality. In practice, the thresholds for receiving public legal assistance were calculated using the minimum gross pay in 2008, which is now much higher.
FACIAS has advocated for changing the public legal aid eligibility standards so that more low-income people can have access to justice.