The Project “Promotion of the rule of law and fundamental rights through high-quality online trainings in the Croatian Judiciary” implemented by the Council of Europe (CoE) in cooperation with the European Commission DG REFORM is aimed at providing support to the Judicial Academy of Croatia to improve the methodology, tools and expertise to design and deliver high-quality training. The Croatian judiciary should be strengthened through development of remotely accessible training resources, and specifically through training focusing on the existing standards in the field of human rights protection and the rule of law, and their practical application.

For this purpose, in spring 2022 a Training Needs Assessment was conducted as a joint initiative of the teams of the Council of Europe, and two Project beneficiaries: the Judicial Academy of Croatia and the Office of the Representative of the Republic of Croatia before the European Court of Human Rights.

The Training Needs Assessment (TNA) was conducted in the form of an on-line survey (questionnaires) with the target groups of judges, prosecutors and judicial advisors, alongside a focus group discussion held on 21 February 2022. Participants of the focus group were distinguished judicial professionals directly involved in practical and theoretical work in the areas of the potential training topics. Furthermore, recommendations of the Council of Europe monitoring bodies in the field of training we considered together with methodologies for judicial training of the Human Rights Education for Legal Professionals (HELP) programme and the European Judicial Training Network (EJTN).

Eight topics were recommended as the first to be piloted under the Project, considering the urgency of training on the specific topics; balancing of the interests of target groups (criminal, civil and administrative law practitioners); availability of respective materials and HELP courses adapted for Croatia; needs determined in the assessment of national resources and CoE monitoring bodies recommendation.

The specific recommendation of the Focus Group related to the methodology is to ensure transversality in trainings and address ECHR case law, European and domestic law. Further recommendations were provided on the training methodology with more focus on e-learning following the full modernisation of training process and its management.

The Project “Promotion of the rule of law and fundamental rights through high-quality online trainings in the Croatian Judiciary” is funded by the European Union via the Technical Support Instrument, and implemented by the Council of Europe, in cooperation with the European Commission.