A two-day study visit to the Council of Europe and European Court of Human Rights (the Court) was organised for a group of ten judges and prosecutors. The visit aimed at enhancing their knowledge of the European Convention of Human Rights (the Convention) and understanding of the work of different bodies of the Council of Europe. Participants had the possibility to learn and exchange on the Court’s standards, concerning Articles 3, 5 and 6 from the Convention, which will facilitate to better apply the Convention and prevent human rights violations at national level. In that context, they had an opportunity to attend a Grand Chamber hearing at the Court, the case of Tănase v. Romania, which concerns inhuman and degrading treatment under Article 3 of the Convention.
They were also actively participating in discussions with speakers from other Council of Europe bodies, such as: Department for execution of judgments of the ECtHR, Committee for Prevention of Torture, Commissioner of Human Rights, Human Rights Education for Legal Professionals (HELP) programme and a courtesy visit to the Permanent Representation of the “former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" to the Council of Europe. This enabled them to broaden their perspective on the work of the Council of Europe in the field of human rights protection.
Participants expressed that they had strongly believed that the study visit, in particular presentations on the ECtHR topics, will facilitate their work both as judges and prosecutors, but also as trainers.
This activity was organized within the Project “Increasing judicial capacity to safeguard human rights and combat ill-treatment and impunity”, as part of the “Horizontal Facility for Western Balkans and Turkey”. The participants were part of the Training of Trainers on Article 6 and Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, organised under this Project.
