Between September 4-8, 2023, in Budapest, Hungary, took place a new edition of the Mentoring Program for Legal professionals. Representatives of the national law system of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine came together to strengthen their competences regarding the Istanbul Convention of the Council of Europe and the standards related to gender equality, as well as training skills within judicial institutions in Eastern Partnership countries. Five trainers from the National Institute of Justice participated in this program, in order to apply later the knowledge in the training of other professionals in the legal system.
The training sessions were facilitated by Council of Europe experts Zora Csalagovits and Elisabeth Duban, who emphasized a different approach to teaching methodology that establishes a link between access to justice theories, the international human rights framework and the day-to-day work of professionals. Participants were also familiarized with the use of the "Guide for Developing a Mentoring Program on Women's Access to Justice", which was designed to enhance the continuous learning of justice practitioners, especially judges and prosecutors. Thus, this tool will allow mentees to focus on three aspects of improving women's access to justice: associating abstract concepts with their everyday work, referring to international law in domestic cases, identifying and responding to gender stereotypes and prejudice gender in legal practice.
The Council of Europe mentoring program for legal professionals was carried out as part of the Good Governance Partnership III regional project ,,Women’s Access to Justice – delivering on the Istanbul Convention and other European gender equality standards”.
