On 26 November, the Council of Europe Programme Office in Skopje and the Council of Europe HELP Programme were represented during the regional conference “Further educational priorities, goals and challenges of the Judicial Academies” organised in Skopje to mark the 15^th Anniversary of the Academy for Judges and Public Prosecutors of the Republic of North Macedonia.

The Conference brough together representatives of international organisations, training providers and training institutions for judges and prosecutors from South East Europe that could exchange on strategic directions in determining the educational priorities of Judicial Academies.

Lejla Dervisagic – Head of Operations of the Council of Europe Programme Office in Skopje – highlighted the longstanding and fruitful cooperation between the Academy for Judges and Public Prosecutors and the Council of Europe that organised its first training for judges and prosecutors shortly after the Academy’s establishment in 2006. Since then, the Council of Europe cooperated with the Academy through various European Union and Council of Europe joint programmes, including the ongoing Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Turkey (2019-2022), by covering priority issues such as freedom of expression, hate crime and hate speech, anti-discrimination and combating trafficking in human beings and it stands ready to support it in the future.

The Academy for Judges and Public Prosecutors is a member of the Council of Europe HELP (Human Rights Education for Legal Professionals) Network since its establishment. The HELP Programme and its achievement were presented by Ana Medarska-Lazova – Deputy Head of HELP Progamme: the HELP e-learning platform counts more than 1300 Macedonian users; 38 HELP online courses were implemented in co-operation with the Academy for the benefit of more than 400 Macedonian legal professionals. As a good practice, the Academy is systematically including key HELP online courses in the annual programme for initial training.

Among others, representatives from AIRE Centre, Ecole Nationale de la Magistrature (ENM), European Commission – DG Justice, European Judicial Training Network (EJTN), European Institute for Public Administration (EIPA), Open Regional Fund for South East Europe – Legal Reform GIZ and Academy of European Law (ERA) participated in the session.

Representatives from Judicial Academies from the Western Balkans and South East Europe exchanged on educational priorities and shared experiences on overcoming challenges in judicial training during COVID-19 pandemic

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The Council of Europe HELP Programme supports judges, prosecutors, lawyers and other relevant professionals from the 47 Council of Europe member states and beyond to apply European human rights standards in their daily work. HELP develops and implements online courses on human rights for legal and other (justice) professionals.

The HELP online courses are hosted on the HELP online platform and can be taken as self-learning courses (available publicly for unlimited access to anyone who creates an account) and tutored courses (organised in cooperation with training institutions and moderated by a HELP national tutor).