52 beneficiaries of the National Institute of Justice - judges, prosecutors and lawyers providing state-guaranteed legal aid - registered for a new HELP course “Procedural guarantees in criminal proceedings and victims' rights”. The launch of the event took place on Tuesday, February 1, 2022, in online format, being the 15th HELP course piloted by the National Institute of Justice and adapted to the national internal legal order.
William Massolin, Head of the Council of Europe Office in Chisinau, His Excellence E.S. Steven Fisher, Ambassador of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to the Republic of Moldova, Ecaterina Popa, Interim Director of the National Institute of Justice, and Ana Medarska-Lazova, Deputy Head of the HELP Unit of the Council of Europe, who expressed their belief that such activities will have a relevant impact on streamlining the national legal system.
Douglas Maxwell, CoE Project Manager, and Janeta Hanganu, Senior Lawyer, Registry of the European Court of Human Rights, informed trainees on objectives of the European Program on the Training of Human Rights Lawyers (HELP) and the ECtHR jurisprudence in cases against the Republic of Moldova on Article 6 of the European Convention.
During the launch, the national tutors HELP, NIJ trainers, Oleg Rotari, the Government Agent at the ECtHR, and Tatiana Ciaglic, head of the e-Training Section, NIJ, referred to the practical aspects of the course, its national adaptation, methods and evaluation criteria etc.
The HELP course “Procedural Safeguards in Criminal Procedure and Victims' Rights” consists of six modules that integrates both the fundamental procedural rights of accused persons and the rights of the victims, in particular their access to justice. The distance learning program, active from 1 February to 1 April 2022, includes presentations, knowledge assessment tests, scenarios and reflection exercises.
The launch event was organized as part of the project “Implementing the ECHR in the Eastern Partnership States through HELP”, funded by the Government of the United Kingdom and carried out by the Council of Europe.