From 7 to 9 September this year, the Council of Europe, in cooperation with the Coordination Centre for Legal Aid Provision, conducted two trainings for about 35 lawyers-trainers of the free legal aid (FLA) system from various regions of Ukraine. Trainings were held within the framework of the Council of Europe project "Continued support to the Criminal Justice Reform in Ukraine" funded by the Government of Denmark.
The event was attended by lawyers involved in the provision of free secondary legal aid, who also train their colleagues, other lawyers who provide free assistance. The training program included trainers’ skills training, and, in addition, for the newcomers of the lawyers-trainers network, discussion and clarification of the standards of the European Convention on Human Rights in the criminal procedure.
"The Council of Europe supports the system of free legal aid, among other, in the development of its own institutionalized mechanism for the training of lawyers and FLA employees. Back in 2013, we jointly prepared a network of lawyers-trainers: practicing lawyers who provide free legal aid within this system, and who, in parallel, using their knowledge, skills and abilities, are capable of training their colleagues - new lawyers who become involved in the provision of secondary legal aid in criminal cases within the framework of the FLA. For projects implemented by the Council of Europe, the sustainability of the results is of great significance. That is why we are aiming at developing and maintaining a network of lawyers-trainers and it is important for us to train them, so that, even after the end of our project, they can continue to train their colleagues and their knowledge continue to spread, "explains the legal advisor of the Council of Europe project Olga Dubinska.
During the first two-day training, participants were trained in trainers’ skills. The event was attended by experienced lawyers-trainers working in the system of free legal aid for quite a long time, as well as by lawyers who have recently joined the trainers network or do not have the experience of conducting independent trainings at all, and only plan to start coaching activities.
"Since we had mixed groups, we conducted a preliminary survey and found that participants who already had the experience of conducting trainings, were interested in working to improve their coaching skills and learning the tools of working with difficult audience. And newcomers are interested in structured information on techniques and tools for conducting trainings and in sharing experiences with colleagues-practitioners. It was the basis we built our work on, combining theoretical knowledge with practical tasks. In general, I believe that such training is vital for people who train or will train others. After all, they can not only acquire new knowledge, but also get practical experience ", - says Eugenia Bilan, business coach, public speaking skills development expert, co-author of Oksana Grabar School of Trainers. Together with Oksana Grabar, business coach, training skills development expert, founder and CEO of her own training school, they developed the training programme and conducted the training for the lawyers-trainers.
The effectiveness and usefulness of the training is also confirmed by its participants. "Despite the fact that I have been training my colleagues for several years, today I have learned really useful things for me. I usually work in pairs, because it is difficult to work independently. But today, at the event I got a lot of tools how to work with the audience, with difficult participants, how to behave, what to say, what gestures to use - and these skills will help me to more effectively conduct trainings on my own, without the help of my colleagues ", - notes lawyer from Lutsk, head of the Volyn branch of the All-Ukrainian Union of Lawyers Providing Legal Aid, Eugenia Kovalenko.
"Since 2013 I have conducted about 100 trainings. But only today I have received a substantiated explanation why some tools that I used just intuitively worked, and some did not ", - says Sergiy Lysak, a lawyer, director of the Kamyanske local legal aid center.
In order to help lawyers-trainers, who have recently joined the system of free secondary legal aid, to better deal with the European Convention on Human Rights, the Council of Europe invited a human rights expert, a human rights defender who was at the root of the FLA system, a lawyer Roman Martynovsky. He briefed the participants on the general principles and vision of the main Articles of the European Convention and the structure of the rights protected by these Articles. The discussion of the Convention and the European Court of Human Rights case law was led in the context of their application in criminal proceedings in Ukraine. The participants were presented with many practical tasks, based on real cases, so that the trainees were able to better understand how to use knowledge of Articles in the criminal proceedings.
"I really enjoy the fact that we are considering real life cases in the training. Thanks to this, we can clearly understand the application of the specific clauses of the Convention and look from different points of view at the circumstances and application of the Articles of the Convention in different aspects of the criminal proceedings. I am participating in such a training for the first time, but I have already understood how useful it is and how much I can take from it for my work in the system of free legal aid ", - says Anna Shyshko, lawyer from the city of Kyiv.
"Since Ukraine ratified the European Convention on Human Rights, it is very important that its clauses to be followed on the territory of our state. And there are four categories of people responsible for this: lawyers, judges, prosecutors or investigators and human rights activists. Therefore, it is very important for the whole Ukrainian judicial system to form the respect to the Convention from the side of the representatives of these four categories, to teach them to speak the language of the Convention. After all, the language of the European Convention is universal and the knowledge of this document not only broadens the lawyers’ mindset, but also increases their credibility ", - says the trainer Roman Martynovsky.
"The European Convention on Human Rights is a part of the national legislation and is of a higher weight than a national law, so lawyers need to be well-informed about it. It is an effective mechanism of work, because when the lawyer's position in the case is based not only on the reference to the norms of the national legislation but also on the actual practice of the European Court of Human Rights, the position of the defender is much more solid and strong. But, in order to be able to use the Convention in practice, one needs to learn how to understand the logic behind the judgment of the European Court and in which cases Articles of the Convention are used. And this is exactly what we are being taught at today's training", - said Andriy Mazur, a lawyer from the city of Khmelnytsky.
The Council of Europe Project "Continued Support to the Criminal Justice Reform in Ukraine" will continue until the spring of 2019. There are numerous activities planned to further develop the system of free legal aid in Ukraine, increase the aid quality and accessibility. Thus, already in the near future, the lawyers-trainers will start using their gained knowledge and skills to conduct for new lawyers, involved in the provision of secondary free legal aid, training on the topic "Application of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine in the Light of the European Standards".
