Legal professionals, members of human rights NGOs and experts from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, Russia and Ukraine met in an international conference, held on December 16 and 17 in Chisinau, to exchange good practices on strategic litigation and procedures before the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), IPN learned from a press release of the Council of Europe Office in Chisinau.
“The Joint CoE/EU Program has been successfully implemented for more than a year now, and as a result several hundred legal professionals have been trained in various aspects of the application of the European Convention on Human Rights. We hope the impact on the local capacity to apply the Convention will translate into both a better protection of fundamental rights at national level and a reduction in the ECHR caseload. It's an open process of capacity building in which the local Moldovan authorities will play a leading role in the future”, said Jose Luis Herrero, head of the CoE Office in Moldova.
Gheorghe Amihalachioaie, the president of the Moldovan Lawyer's Union, noted that the matters of non-discrimination have attracted increased attention in our country lately, and with the adoption of a proper legal framework, training in this area will be of great importance for society.
“This joint regional Program funded by the European Union and implemented by the Council of Europe aims to ensure adequate support to Moldova in meeting its commitments to guarantee the rights and freedoms enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights at national level. Providing an adequate response to discrimination cases is of great importance to the European Union and I believe that the implementation of this Program will give an additional impetus to the efforts to consolidate the justice sector reform and will strengthen human rights standards in Moldova”, said Wicher Slagter, Head of Section at the EU Delegation to Moldova.
The event was organized as part of the CoE/EU Joint Program “Strengthening the capacity of lawyers and human rights defenders for domestic application of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and of the Revised European Social Charter (RESC)”. This is a regional project, underway in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, Russian Federation and Ukraine during 2013-2015.
