Background

Following a survey conducted among NALILG membership of 150 jurists working for local government, and taking into account the fact that 60% of the municipal officials are newly appointed and possessing a relatively short professional experience, a vital need for improving legal knowledge and skills of jurists and executive municipal officials has been registered. A strong demand for up-to-date information and equal access to relevant information sources exists among municipal jurists, regardless of the size of the municipality. A regular introduction to the current legislative framework and best practices in solving specific cases is crucial for the work of jurists and heads of municipal departments, as legislation in Bulgaria is rapidly changing.

Practice

The project developed and implemented by the National Association Legal Initiative of Local Government (NALILG) in the framework of the Effective Partnerships Program administered by the Foundation of Local Government Reform, with the financial support of the United States Agency for International Development, aims to:
Enhance professional knowledge and skills of municipal jurists and executive municipal officials, irrespective of the field of their expertise;
Deliver legal technical assistance to Bulgarian municipalities, municipal councils and institutions related to local government partner NGOs; local businesses represented through commercial enterprises where municipalities are sole proprietors, major partners or stakeholders; owners of privatized municipal enterprises;
Provide court representation of Bulgarian municipalities and municipal councils before all institutions of the Bulgarian court system.
The project is targeted towards jurists working for local government, heads of departments and directorates, especially Municipal Property , Territorial Development and Privatization and Concessions ; mayors, municipal councilors and municipal administration; management boards of commercial enterprises owned by the municipality.
A set of three training seminars for jurists and executive municipal officials were prepared and conducted in Sofia (2) and Kazanlak (1), entitled The New Management of Municipal Property Issues and Challenges . The seminars goal was to expand general legal knowledge and equip the target groups with practical skills for coping on their own with legal problems in everyday work.
Legal and technical assistance was delivered on request to 20 municipalities and 3 municipal councils through providing legal consultations on site or written consultations within a specified time indicated by the enquirer. This activity has led to improved end results of local government efforts to solve specific legal problems, in terms of saved time, financial and human resources, prevention of losses and ensuring benefit.
Court representation was provided on request of Bulgarian municipalities and municipal councils before the Supreme Court of Appeal and regional courts, with a priority on the former because of limited resources. Local government interests were successfully represented in court in terms of preventing financial loss for non-appearance in court, or sending the inappropriate representative to court trials, in which the payment of substantial sums were demanded from municipalities. Furthermore, there are successful cases of approving disputed changes in residential construction plans in the context of the Territorial Development Act and cancellation of regional governors acts suspending local government decisions.
NALILG project experience has been disseminated to all Bulgarian municipalities through the Association s Newsletter and FLGR web site the LOGIN Legislation Module. The case studies are of great interest to municipalities since they focus on current hot legislative issues. A good multiplication effect has been achieved through the shared NALILG expert legal statements.

Results

The project has produced a number of valuable outcomes and impacts:
- expanding the legal knowledge and skills of the target groups;
- providing a series of legal consultations on municipal requests, publicized widely enough to be useful for other municipalities with similar problems;
- bringing practical benefit to a number of Bulgarian municipalities in view of their specific legal problems;
- developing NALILG capacity of being a reliable partner and legal advisor to local government in Bulgaria.