The Council of Europe and The Serbian Judicial Academy organised a one-day training of trainers for senior prosecutors on addressing risks of undue or unlawful influence on the prosecution service.

Council of Europe experts completed a series of workshops on preventing undue pressure for both prosecutors and prosecutorial assistants in all four appellate jurisdictions with almost 200 direct participants. All the training was carried out in close co-operation with the State Prosecutorial Council, whose elected members have taken active involvement as speakers, highlighting this body’s competences in addressing undue influence, especially by the Commissioner for Autonomy of the Public Prosecution.

The partnership established with the Judicial Academy in organising this training of trainers will ensure sustainability, as the workshops on preventing undue influence are now part of their cluster on ethics and will be offered as part of continuous training of prosecutors as early as January 2019. All information on the course and materials will also be made available online at the Judicial Academy’s website.

This activity is organised as part of the on-going Action on “Strengthening Legal Guarantees for Independent and Impartial Tribunals”, co-funded by the European Union and Council of Europe’s joint programme Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Turkey, implemented by the Council of Europe.