Strasbourg, 17 September 2004

Signature of the Memorandum of Understanding

between the Council of Europe and the Government of the Republic of Turkey, concerning the programme support office of the Secretariat of the Council of Europe in Ankara, established under the Joint European Community/Council of Europe Programme "Judicial Modernisation and Penal Reform"

This MoU is intended to enable the concrete implementation of the General Agreement on Privileges and Immunities to the Judicial Modernisation and penal reform project and notably to the Council of Europe Programme Office opened in Ankara in April 2004 for the purpose of this programme.

Its aim is to cover issues such as privileges of the Office, of the staff¹ and the tax exemption for the purchase of goods and services under the project.

The project should benefit from this agreement not only in financial terms but also in terms of efficiency, cost-effectiveness and transparency of procedures.

Judicial Modernisation and penal reform project

This programme has been signed on 8 March 2003 for a three-year duration for a total budget of 10 mill euros of which 7.3 are managed through the Council of Europe.

The programme aims at supporting the reforms and the efforts planned or already under implementation by Turkish authorities, on the basis of European standards shared by the European Commission and the Council of Europe, as foreseen in the Turkish Accession Partnership and the National Programme for the Adoption of the Acquis.

It concerns two main sectors: the judiciary and the penitentiary.

A. The support to the judiciary includes:
- assistance to the newly created Academy of justice for the training of judges and prosecutors
- training for the staff of the Ministry of Justice and
- the development of a forensic medicine institute;

B. The support to the penitentiary includes:
- assistance for the architectural structure of prisons
- training of human resources involved in the penitentiary
- prison management and treatment of inmates

The direct beneficiary of the programme is the Ministry of Justice. Target groups and beneficiaries include judges and prosecutors, enforcement judges, auxiliary staff in courts, prison staff, inmates, Forensic Medicine experts and other staff of the Ministry of Justice.

The programme is expected to significantly increase the capacity of the Ministry of Justice to carry out its institutional tasks, and to design and carry out reforms in its various areas of competence.

The support the programme will bring to the Judiciary System will contribute to the improvement of the functioning and efficiency of the judiciary in Turkey in line with the European standards shared by the European Commission and the Council of Europe. In particular it will enhance performance of the system through improved information training, monitoring and forensic services, as well as through better quality of judicial, civil and criminal legislation and procedures. The project will draw on good practice in Europe.

The project will also deal with the improvement of the penitentiary system in Turkey in order to align conditions with the standards developed by the UN as well as the Council of Europe. It will notably contribute to the modernisation of the system and to the improvement of the detention conditions by adapting policies and practices on prison management, including human resource development, architectural norms, rehabilitation, and by reinforcing the efficiency of the new system of enforcement judges.

As the Council of Europe and the European Commission share the same norms and standards as regards the judiciary and the prison system, taking into account the longstanding membership of Turkey to the Council of Europe, relying on the Council of Europe’s specific instruments and expert networks regarding Human Rights and the Rule of Law in Europe as well as its unique experience and expertise of judicial and legal reforms at a pan-European level, Council of Europe has offered to cooperate with the European Commission for the benefit of one of its member States, to support Judicial Modernisation and Prison Reform in Turkey and to contribute to the achievement of the following objectives stated in the Accession Partnership: "Improving the functioning and the efficiency of the judiciary" and "Adjusting detention conditions in prisons to bring them into line with the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners and other international norms".