ECPC aims at establishing a pan-European network of volunteer legal practitioners that will reinforce the advocacy work of the ECPC and cancer patients with legal instruments.
What we are looking for: recruit a solid base of legal practitioners that aim to share their legal competences to the benefit of cancer patients on a volunteer basis. ECPC will create an online platform where lawyers across Europe can exchange information and provide legal advice.
Nominate a lawyer
If you would like to nominate a lawyer to be part of the LNCP, please send an email to dan.cimpoeru@ecpc.org/, before the 1st of September 2016, including the registration form, the declaration of interest, a CV and a profile photo of the candidate.
More on this initiative
The LNCP will bring together pro bono lawyers, nominated by the ECPC members and endorsed by the ECPC Board.
What can the LNCP do?
1. Monitoring Compliance with the EU Legislation by the Member States
“Public Health” is regulated by art. 168 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. “Public Health” is a competence shared between Member States and the EU. EU legislation needs to be transposed into Member States’ national law by the deadline set out in the legislation. Often, national authorities experience considerable transposition difficulties and the law is not adequately implemented.
The LNCP will act as a „legal watchdog” in cases of doubtful transposition. ECPC Board might, at the request of the LNCP, adopt a position and make a statement on the issue at stake.
2. Defending Patients’ rights when EU Legislation is breached by the Member States
In 2014-2015, based on the art. 6 (1) of the European Directive 89/105/EEC of 21 December 1988, the Romanian Federation of Cancer Patients Associations (FABC), with my help, won 17 lawsuits against the Romanian government and now a number of 165 cancer patients are receiving medical treatment for free. This is a real example that we can build a national lawsuit based only on the EU rules. Starting from this, the LNCP could provide legal assistance for national NGOs.
3. Sharing Legal Best Practices
The Platform will allow practitioners to exchange best practices from action settlement to lawsuit litigation and communication around the cases taken to court.
4. An Online Health Library
Establish an online library with legal resources on health from various Member States. The LNCP members would translate into English the relevant extracts from national laws and download them on the ECPC website.
5. A Legal Professional Background for ECPC Positions
As an umbrella organization ECPC is often requested to express official positions on different papers/issues. ECPC positions would be stronger if legally documented. The LNCP lawyers will support ECPC advocacy work with legal arguments to reinforce some of its messages. LNCP will became a think tank generating ideas for the ECPC. For this purpose, the LNCP will organize working groups for studying different legal matters.
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