In November – December 2017, the ‘Strengthening the Capacity of the High School of Justice of Georgia Project’ has completed a number of pilot trainings with the trainers of the High School of Justice. Trainings covered four areas: International Humanitarian Law, Anti-Trafficking in Human Beings, Communication and Violence against Women and Domestic Violence. Pilot trainings are the last stage in the process of development of new modules for the High School of Justice of Georgia.

The pilot trainings enabled trainers to further enhance their skills. In the words of one of the participants of the Violence against Women and Domestic Violence training, ‘the module will be in high demand, as the number of domestic violence cases has increased dramatically and now constitutes one of the largest shares among the total number of cases in courts.’

Overall during its lifespan, the Project has developed 9 training modules for judges and court staff. As a result, these modules will be included in the curricula of the High School of Justice of Georgia and will be available for the continuous training of judges and court staff.

The modules were prepared within the framework of the Council of Europe Project “Strengthening the capacity of the High School of Justice of Georgia”. This Project is funded by the voluntary contributions of Bulgaria, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Norway, the Slovak Republic and Sweden to support the implementation of the Council of Europe Action Plan for Georgia 2016-2019. The training on Violence against Women and Domestic Violence was prepared in collaboration with UN Women Georgia.

Keywords: High School of Justice of Georgia, violence against women, domestic violence, communication, international humanitarian law, trafficking, training module, judge, court staff training, Council of Europe Action Plan for Georgia.