Free legal aid as a guarantee of ensuring the right to a fair trial

It is indicated that in November 1995, Ukraine joined the Council of Europe. This fact should be recognized as a necessary and important episode in strengthening the positions of our state as a subject of international legal relations. But this event also had another important significance for Ukraine in positioning it as a full member of the family of democratic countries - upon accession, it undertook to comply with its general obligations under the Statute of the Council of Europe, namely pluralistic democracy, the rule of law and the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms of all persons under its jurisdiction. The article provides a comprehensive scholarly and legal analysis of free legal aid as one of the key institutional guarantees for ensuring the right to a fair trial and equal access to justice. The relevance of the study is обусловлена the persistence of systemic problems in the implementation of the right to defence, the high number of applications lodged against Ukraine before the European Court of Human Rights, as well as the need for further improvement of the national mechanism for providing free legal aid in the context of the transformation of the legal system and the growing social vulnerability of a significant part of the population. Based on the analysis of international legal instruments, the provisions of the European Convention on Human Rights and the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, it is demonstrated that the State’s obligation to ensure effective legal assistance cannot be limited exclusively to criminal proceedings, but must also extend to other types of jurisdictional procedures in which an individual risks substantial restrictions of their rights and freedoms. On the basis of statistical data and the results of international and national monitoring studies, the authors substantiate the conclusion that negative trends persist in the sphere of observance of the right to defence and the principle of equality of arms, which confirms the necessity of further development and strengthening of the institutional and procedural foundations of the free legal aid system. The scientific novelty of the article lies in substantiating an approach to understanding free legal aid as a system-forming element of the state-legal, primarily administrative-law, mechanism for ensuring the right to a fair trial. The conclusions formulated in the article create a theoretical basis for further scholarly research aimed at enhancing the effectiveness of the free legal aid system in Ukraine.