Donor: Freedom House
Duration of project: March 2001 – March 2002
Clearly any movement to foster respect for human rights had to include, from its very inception, a program to educate the police force and their managing officials of the tenets of human rights law. In order to work toward this goal of police education, the Centre organised four 4-day seminars directed specifically at the law enforcement profession. Participants (30 per seminar) were selected by the Board of the Belgrade Centre in close cooperation with the Federal and Republican Ministry of the Interior. Seminars were comprised of a combination of case studies, workshops, and lectures from both domestic and foreign human rights experts. The seminars began with an overview of the concrete rights the police force must respect, and covered specific institutions and human rights protection mechanisms, as well as general theory. The purpose of the seminars was to instil in the police force the understanding that it is its duty to protect the human rights of citizens and to put an end to the cycle of power abuse that has been rampant in the Yugoslav police force for the past several decades.
As in BCHR seminars for the judiciary, these seminars covered specific institutions and mechanisms of human rights as well as an overview of the concrete rights they must respect. The participants also became familiar with the rights and norms enshrined in various United Nations documents including the Convention against Torture and the Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials.
A further goal of the seminars was to gather members of the law enforcement profession to explore from their respective positions the new Criminal Procedure Code (CPC), adopted in 2001, which provides more comprehensive guarantees for the suspect, accused and defendant in criminal proceedings. This would thus contribute to better implementation of the CPC.
