Our EFRJ Board member Aarne Kinnunen, Deputy Head of the Department of Criminal Policy at the Finnish Ministry of Justice, has been appointed to attend the meeting of the working group ‘Alternative Dispute Resolution Mechanisms’ with focus on criminal restorative justice and mediation in civil cases (Strasbourg, 26 September 2016). Kinnunen will attend this event on behalf of the EFRJ as an expert in restorative justice.
This is one of the three working groups established within the project ‘Regional Dialogue on Judicial Reform in the Eastern Partnership Countries (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Republic of Moldova, Ukraine)‘ which focuses on fostering dialogue and networks on judicial matters between national legal professionals. The project is part of the joint Council of Europe and European Union Eastern Partnership Programmatic Co-operation Framework for 2015-2017.
The other two working groups will also meet in Strasbourg at the end of September. The first one will explore the challenges connected to the independence of judges; the second one will focus on ways for ensuring transparency, public participation and effective communication in judicial reform processes. The three working groups will bring together judges, prosecutors, representatives of the ministries of justice, bar associations and civil society organisations sharing experiences on their national judicial reforms.
The provisional programme of the working group ‘Alternative Dispute Resolution Mechanisms’ include:
- a presentation of relevant European and other international standards
- an overview and analysis of the most challenging issues faced by participating countries
- a presentation of case-studies, best practices or lessons learned in relation to the identified challenges from experiences of countries both within the region and in other Council of Europe member states
- proposals and discussions of possible regional approaches or cooperation initiatives that could be undertaken in response to the identified challenges
More information on these events will be published on the website of the Programmatic Cooperation Framework.
