Updated: December 30, 2016
Workshops for judicial asssistants from appellate courts in Serbia Kragujevac 9 november, Niš 6 December and Novi Sad 15 December.
November and December MDTF C / J Specialist conducted a series of workshops on how to use legal databases in Serbian language, that include jurisprudence of European Court of Human Rights from Strasbourg.
Judicial assistants from Appellate Courts from the Case-Law Departments were primary target group of these workshops, while some additional court staff (judicial assistants asigned to panels in criminal, civil and labour law matters) expressed also strong interest to benefit from this opportunity, so they were coopted to the group upon application.
These resulted in greater number of participants than planned, so in Kragujevac (9 November) there were 15 judicial assistants participating (both those from the Case Law Departments and the others who joined as supplementary target group).
In Niš (6 December), there were 22 judicial assistants, and in Novi Sad (15 December) also 22 judicial assistants attending, from the appellate courts there.
The workshops comprised two components – first one focused on use of databases of Strasbourg court jurisprudence in Serbian language, while the other contained interactive exercise on legal qualification of facts under European Convention on Human Rights in two selected examples. Examples used included the discrimination of former KGB-officials in post-Soviet Lithuania with regard to proportionality of restrictions to their rights to labour, employment and free choice of profession, imposed by law (given that the economic and social rights are not directly protected under Convention). Topics covered in second case study involved difference between the value judgments and statements of facts in the mixed sayings, in the context of higher standards of freedom of expression of the elected representatives.
Higher number of participants (when comparing cca. 7 judicial assistants belonging to the primary target group, as the staff within Case-Law Departments, with the numbers of participants in total - where the others came because of their interest in the topics offered) as well as the excellent feedback expressed through evaluation (based on questionnary distributed connected to the workshops) resulted in willingness both among the appellate courts, as well as in Supreme Court of Casssation for these workshops on ECHR case law and databases to be spread in 2017 both vertically to judicial assistants (not limited only to those from Case Law Departments) from Higher Courts, and horizontally to judicial staff in state-level courts (Commercial Appellate Court, Administrative Court and Misdemeanor Appellate Court).
