The European Union and Council of Europe, in cooperation with the Ministry of Justice of Turkey, held a high-level launching conference on 14 October in Ankara for the joint project on ‘Improving International Judicial Cooperation in Criminal Matters in Turkey’.
The keynote speakers included Mr Jan Kleijjsen, Director of Information Society - Action against Crime of the Council of Europe, Ms Hanne Juncher, Head of Action against Crime Department of the Council of Europe, Ambassador Nikolaus Meyer-Landrut, Head of the EU Delegation to Turkey, Mr Barbaros Murat Köse, Deputy Director of the Central Finance and Contracts Unit, Mr Faruk Kaymakcı, Deputy Minister and Director for EU Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Mr Abdulhamit Gül, Minister of Justice of Turkey.
Additional interventions during the event provided an overview of the project’s objectives, international standards pertaining to the international judicial cooperation in criminal matters and the related domestic regulatory framework.
The project aims at supporting the Turkish authorities in enhancing the overall system and capacities to conduct effective international judicial cooperation in criminal matters. The main areas of technical assistance focus on enhancing legislative and institutional framework for international cooperation, mutual legal assistance, and introducing a mechanism for collecting and processing incoming and outgoing mutual legal assistance requests. Additional training activities will support increasing capacities of the Ministry of Justice’s Central Authority and judicial authorities on international cooperation in criminal matters and strengthening cooperation and coordination capacities with international organisations and European Union Member States.
The project is co-funded by the European Union and the Council of Europe, and implemented by the Council of Europe.
