More than 180 judges and prosecutors from the Western Balkans, that is, from Bosnia and Hercegovina, Kosovo*, Montenegro and North Macedonia, participated in the online regional event organised for the launching of the HELP course on Judicial Reasoning and Human Rights.

The participants were welcomed by Ana Maria TELBIS, the Head of the Justice and Human Rights Training Division. Ivana ROAGNA, Council of Europe expert and a leader of the Working Group for the creation of the course, presented the modules, and Jasminka PERUNICIC ALLEN, Senior Project Officer, Council of Europe introduced the participants with the HELP methodology and the HELP in the Western Balkans project. The event served to exchange ideas and domestic court practise in respective Beneficiaries as the course will be implemented in separate groups in different languages of the Western Balkans.

The HELP course Judicial Reasoning and Human Rights is a priority course for the HRTF funded project “HELP in the Western Balkans”. HELP online courses have already been recognised as an effective tool in terms of general measures for the execution of the ECtHR judgments. By increasing the capacities of domestic legal professionals to directly apply the ECHR, the project HELP in the Western Balkans aims to contribute to: decreasing the number of cases arriving before the ECHR and increasing the number of closed cases by the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers, subject to the supervision of the execution of the ECtHR's judgments.

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This free HELP online course provides a comprehensive overview of judicial reasoning and justice quality standards relating to criminal and civil proceedings, case-law and good practices.

This HELP online course was developed by the joint European Union/Council of Europe Action Strengthening the effective legal remedies to human rights violations in Serbia, jointly with the Council of Europe HELP Programme. The Action is implemented within the joint programme Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Turkey 2019-2022. The views expressed herein can in no way be taken to reflect the official position of the European Union.

The course was published in the updated version in English in February 2022.