On 18-20 July 2023, a delegation of Ukrainian judges-trainers visited Vilnius to develop a training programme for judges on legal certainty and legitimate expectations in the context of social benefits. The purpose of the visit was to exchange experience with Lithuanian colleagues and develop course materials. The visit took place in the framework of the Council of Europe projects “Support to the functioning of justice in the war and post-war context in Ukraine" and "Enhanced social protection in Ukraine", implemented within the Council of Europe Action Plan for Ukraine "Resilience. Recovery. Reconstruction" for 2023-2026.

The delegation consisted of the judges-trainers of the National School of Judges of Ukraine, who at the same time are judges of courts of administrative jurisdiction in different regions of Ukraine.

During the visit, a meeting with the judges of the Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania was held in order to get acquainted with the case law of the administrative courts of Lithuania with a focus on the application of the principle of legal certainty and its elements, the implementation of the right to social security, as well as the unity of the judicialcase law and tools for its ensuring.

Also, the participants of the visit had the opportunity to meet separately with the representatives of the National Court Administration of the Republic of Lithuania, as well as with judges of the Constitutional Court of Lithuania.

Among the topics discussed:

• the case law of the Constitutional Court of Lithuania regarding the application of the principle of legal certainty in the context of the right to social security and the limitation of rights due to the economic crisis;
• the organisation and training of judges;
• the judicial system of Lithuania and the model of judicial self-government.

In addition to exchanging experience with Lithuanian colleagues, the delegation also held active working sessions on course development to determine the scope of the course materials, its structure, and the finalisation of the modules, as well as outlined a number of issues that need to be updated. Dmytro Tretyakov, Deputy Registrar of the Administrative Tribunal of the Council of Europe, case-lawyer of the Registry of the European Court of Human Rights, and Alla Fedorova, member of the European Committee of Social Rights, made the overview of the case law of the European Court of Human Rights, the European Committee of Social Rights and the standards of the Council of Europe, in particular the European Social Charter (revised).

To remind, the course for judges on legal certainty is being developed jointly with the National School of Judges of Ukraine. It will contain a separate module on legitimate expectations in the context of benefits in the social protection system in accordance with European standards. It is expected that the course will be approbated in November 2023, and included later on in the mandatory training programme for judges of administrative specialisation.