Well-reasoned court decisions are a guarantee against arbitrary judgment, ensure the proper conduct of justice and increase the public confidence in the system of justice. In order to achieve these goals, the National Institute of Justice, in partnership with the Council of Europe HELP Programme (the European Programme for Human Rights Education for Legal Professionals), launched on Friday, 4 March 2022, the online course "Judicial Reasoning and Human Rights". Among the 64 professionals from the national law sector who have managed to apply for this course are judges, prosecutors, lawyers delivering legal assistance guaranteed by the state, judicial assistants and prosecutor’s advisers.
In the opening session, Ecaterina Popa, Ad Interim Director of the National Institute of Justice, noted that the incorporation of research, argumentation and legal writing concepts in the training process of NIJ beneficiaries is among the institutional priorities, and the launch of the course "Judicial Reasoning and Human Rights" comes to confirm this. William Massolin, Head of the CoE Office in Chisinau, and Ana Medarska-Lazova, Deputy Head of the CoE HELP Unit, also welcomed the openness and effective cooperation with the NIJ, including the piloting of the 18th course in the Republic of Moldova, developed by the EU / CoE Joint Action "Strengthening the Effective Legal Remedies to Human Rights Violations in Serbia", together with the HELP Programme.
At the launching event, Diana Sârcu, judge at the European Court of Human Rights, former Director of the NIJ, and Douglas Maxwell, project manager of the Council of Europe, addressed issues related to ECtHR case-law and reasoning of Moldovan courts. The national tutors, NIJ trainers - Ecaterina Popa and Petru Balan, who will be available to participants for queries and guidance on how to go through the distance learning program, have talked about the network and the objectives of the HELP Programme, as well as about the direct implementation of the course.
The HELP online course "Judicial Reasoning and Human Rights", is active from 4 March to 17 April 2022, consists of seven modules and provides a comprehensive overview of judicial reasoning and quality standards of justice in criminal and civil proceedings, case-law and good practices. After 40 hours of training, based on the final test result, trainees will receive HELP certificates.
The launch of the new course was organized under the project "HELP implementing the ECHR in Eastern Partnership countries", funded by the United Kingdom Government and carried out by the Council of Europe.
