Donor: Cooperazione Italiana Nord Sud (CINS) – European Union
Duration of the project: February 2002 – May 2003
In the first phase of the project, a seminar on human rights for judges was organised by the Belgrade Centre for Human Rights, with help from CINS and financial support of the European Commission. The main purpose of the course was to introduce members of judiciary to human rights law and culture, enable them to pay respect on the international human rights standards in their every-day work, as well as to enable them to lecture in this field. Twenty-three participants from five towns in Serbia took part in the seminar. The majority of classes were given in form of lectures, followed by discussions, and there were several case-study sessions that proved to be lively and popular. Lecturers were chosen among the most prominent experts from Yugoslavia and abroad. Belgrade Centre for Human Rights provided the participants with its publications and various articles related to specific topics dealt with during the seminar.During the second phase of the project, a book containing case law of the European Court for Human Rights was published. It has 480 pages and consists of introductory remarks (generally on the European Convention on Human Rights, on the European Court for Human Rights and the procedure before the Court), followed by the review of 13 decisions of the European Court for Human Rights (Assenov and others v. Bulgaria, Kalashnikov v. Russia, Price v. UK, Lanz v. Austria, Streletz, Kessler and Krenz v. Germany, Rotaru v. Romania, Metropolitan Church of Bessarabia and others v. Moldova, Ekin Association v. France, Plattform “Aerzte fuer das Leben” v. Austria, Rekvenyi v. Hungary, Gaygusuz v. Austria, Loizidou v. Turkey, Bankovic and others v. Belgium and others). The book also contains 3 appendixes: European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms with Protocol 11, Rules of Court and the Application Form of the Court.
The meeting of the judges who participated in the first phase of the project and their tutors was held. Namely, the judges who participated in the seminar in June have been preparing themselves during the autumn for the lectures they were supposed to give on the four weekend seminars. The participants were divided into 5 small groups, each working with one expert and dealing with one area of human rights issues: Introduction topics; Mechanisms for the protection of human rights; Prohibition of discrimination; Right to fair trial; and Humanitarian law. This way the participants dealt more specifically with the topics that interested them most and that they were supposed to lecture about during the second phase of the project.
After that, 4 weekend seminars were organised throughout Serbia for their colleagues (Novi Sad, Niš, Mataruška Banja and Belgrade). The programme for all four seminars consisted of the same topics. The covered topics were: Human rights and rule of law; Legal sources and protection of human rights; International organisations and human rights; Procedures for the protection of human rights within the United Nations; Procedure for the protection of human rights within the Council of Europe; Right to fair trial – Art. 6 (1) of the ECHR; Right to fair trial – Art. 6 (2 and 3) of the ECHR; Prohibition of discrimination – European standards; Prohibition of discrimination in the UN system; Humanitarian law – legal regulation and basic principles; International criminal acts and procedure before the courts; Cooperation with international criminal tribunals and Moot court.
The most important result that was achieved was enabling a group of judges (27) to give the lectures in the field of human rights.
