On March 01, 2021, the round table on the presentation of the Council of Europe’s new Project “Support for judicial institutions and processes to strengthen access to justice in Ukraine” took place online.
A round table was held online to discuss the new Council of Europe Project “Support for judicial institutions and processes to strengthen access to justice in Ukraine” (hereinafter – the Project) and was attended by representatives of the highest state authorities of Ukraine, international organizations and international technical assistance projects.
The Project is implemented for two years with the Council of Europe’s financial support and is a successor to the Council of Europe project “Support to the implementation of judicial reform in Ukraine”, which ended in late 2020.
Christophe Poirel, the Director of the Human Rights Department of the Directorate General of Human Rights and the Rule of Law of the Council of Europe, welcomed the participants and assured them that the Council of Europe continues to support judicial reforms and aims to bring Ukrainian legislation in line with European standards.
Iryna Kushnir, the Project Manager, presented the Project to the audience. She described the main activities, algorithms and tools that would be used in the work.
Thus, the Project has three main areas of activity: 1) support for the development of legislation, including the issues of the judiciary, free legal aid and alternative dispute resolution; 2) support of courts in the development of practice, namely unity of practice, the principle of legal certainty, access to the court; 3) support of free legal aid system in improving the quality of services in civil and administrative cases.
Iryna Kushnir also noted, that to achieve the goals of the Project, the international and national experts will analyze respective legislation and practice, educational courses will be formed, training and translations of Council of Europe documents will be organized and cooperation with mass media will be continued.
The Secretariat of the High Qualification Commission of Judges of Ukraine was represented at the event by Natalia Kidina, the Head of the Legal Department and Denys Kuznetsov, the Acting Head of the International Cooperation Department.
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The Council of Europe’s project “Support for judicial institutions and processes to strengthen access to justice in Ukraine” is a continuation of the work undertaken by the Council of Europe on the reform of the judiciary in Ukraine. It aims at a further approximation of the Ukrainian justice system to the Council of Europe standards and recommendations.