The Council of Europe and the European Union organised an online meeting with lawyers of the Legal Aid Service to develop a guidebook focusing on practical skills and the protection of human rights standards in criminal proceedings. The Council of Europe experts together with defence counsel explored various matters of defence to be addressed by the guidebook. In particular, focus was made on issues such as application of pre-trial measures, gathering evidence, advising clients on how to plead, role in plea-bargaining, seeking recusal of judges, conducting cross-examination, challenging the admissibility of evidence and acting in jury cases.

The guidebook will serve as a comprehensive document for the lawyers to act in different cases while representing clients in criminal cases.

The meeting was organised under the EU/CoE joint Project "Supporting the criminal justice reforms - tackling criminal aspects of the judicial reforms in Georgia" within the framework of the Partnership for Good Governance programme.