EJTN’s seminars for prosecutors and judges as a follow up to seminal Rule of Law Project
- Rule of Law seminars for judges (HFR/2020/01) and prosecutors (HFR/2020/07) took place in Sofia, Bulgaria on 5-6 March and online on 29-30 October.
- Leading practitioners and contributing experts to the Rule of Law Project and its Publications took part.
In the above-mentioned context 53 participants from 19 countries attended the rule of law trainings. The seminar for judges consisted of keynote lectures on judicial independence and the relationship between judicial independence and accountability. On the other hand, the lectures of the seminar on prosecutors focused on International Standards: The hierarchical principle vs. independence of individual prosecutors and Fighting corruption. Participants were also offered the opportunity to further discuss and exchange opinions and best practices following in plenary and while separated into working groups.
Rule of Law Project Publications:
The Rule of Law Project was implemented by EJTN during the 2018-2019 timeframe following the decision of the Directorate-General Justice and Consumers (DG JUST) to organise a crucial project on the rule of law for judges, prosecutors and judicial trainers.
With this publication, the EJTN aims to increase judges and prosecutors’ knowledge about key elements of the rule of law deriving from several sources and its practical implications in their professional and private lives increasing mutual understanding. Additionally, it aims to bolster the values and rules that judges and prosecutors need to adhere to in their work, such as integrity and competence, and EU law requirements and standards concerning independence, media communication strategies and appointment or disciplinary procedures, which are essential to reinforcing the rule of law. Finally, the publication aims to enable practitioners to respond to the various challenges relating to the rule of law, and to be aware of how to implement mechanisms to prevent, correct and sanction abuse of the rule of law in practitioners’ daily activities.
The Training Guide on the Rule of Law - for Judges and Prosecutors (divided into 5 units: needs analysis, forms of training delivery, design of a training component, training material design, and assessment and evaluation) has as an objective to share knowledge of how to design training events in the rule of law field, how to implement such activities and, finally, how to best evaluate the process and the results of such trainings.