Between 17-27 October 2018, representatives of the National Institute of Justice have participated in the professional exchange program "Rule of Law - Legal Education and Training Program" sponsored by the Open World Leadership Center of the United States of America.
In an effort to familiarize with the American law system, for ten days, Valentina Contescu, Advisor to the Director, Alexandra Nica, Head of the Training and Research Department, and Petru Balan, lawyer, NIJ trainer, met with representatives of relevant institutions from Washington, District of Columbia and Raleigh, North Carolina. In this context, the program served as a good opportunity for them to compare the American law system with that existing in the Republic of Moldova and to know more about the structure of the judicial system, including the federal judicial system and the state judicial system, the federal judicial process from the perspective of judges of different level courts, the role of the public defender and the lawyer in a trial, etc.
Being part of a judicial training institution, the representatives of the National Institute of Justice were particularly interested in the education and training of judges in the United States of America, as well as in the role, structure and attributions of the Federal Judicial Center, thus discovering the existence of several topics of mutual interest.
The Open World Program was founded in 1999 by the US Congress and has been active in Moldova since 2007. The program has given its participants the chance to get to know the history, culture and functioning of the US authorities.