On 11 February 2020, the HELP course on Reasoning of Judgments was launched for a group of judges and judicial advisors, in cooperation with the Academy of Justice of Armenia and under the Project “Supporting the criminal justice reform and harmonising the application of the European standards”, funded by the European Union and the Council of Europe and implemented by the Council of Europe.

The launching event was opened by Anahit Manasyan, vice-rector of the Academy of Justice of Armenia and HELP Focal Point. Following the presentation of the HELP Programme, the HELP national tutor Gohar Simonyan provided the participants an overview of the course, its learning objectives and the timeframe for its implementation.

The course will be implemented over the next eight weeks. The successful participants to the course will be certified jointly by the Academy of Justice and the Council of Europe.

On 12-13 February 2020, a HELP Training-of-Trainers session was held at the Russian-Armenian University in Yerevan for 15 professors and lecturers of the University.

The session was opened by Marianna Kalashyan, acting Director of the Institute of Law and Politics of the Russian-Armenian University, who stressed the importance of the initiative for the University, which has programmes in Armenian, Russian and English language, and announced the intention to integrate HELP courses in its educational curriculum.

This methodological training session was aimed to equip the professors and lecturers at the University with the methodological and technical skills to launch the HELP courses for their students.

The HELP Methodology and the role of the HELP tutors were presented during the session. In addition, Arayik Ghazaryan and Lusine Sargsyan, both experienced HELP tutors in Armenia, shared with the participants their perspective and practical tips on running a HELP course. Finally, the participants were presented in detail the HELP online platform and engaged in exercises allowing them to use its possibilities in future launch of HELP courses.

Following the successful completion of the trainers’ assignments, the participants will become certified and will be added to the list of HELP tutors. Pilot courses are planned for students at the University, in view of a potential structured integration of the HELP courses starting from autumn 2020.

On 13 February 2020, the successful participants of the third edition of the HELP course on Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence were certified jointly by the Academy of Justice of Armenia and the Council of Europe.

The course was launched in October 2019 under the Project “Preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence in Armenia: continuing the path towards ratification of the Istanbul Convention”. It was implemented over a period of four months for a mixed group of judges, prosecutors and investigators, but also lawyers representing social centres and civil society organisations.

The certification event was opened by the Rector of the Academy of Justice, Sergey Arakelyan, who stressed the excellent cooperation between the Academy and the Council of Europe. The Vice Rector of the Academy of Justice and HELP Focal Point, Anahit Manasyan, referred to the relevance of the topic of violence against women and domestic violence for the Armenian legal professionals and to the noticeable effects of the previously implemented editions of this course.

The tutor of the course, Lusine Sargsyan, provided an overview of the key conclusions of the course implementation, as well as a summary of the participants’ written evaluation of the course. The participants were then invited to also share verbally their feedback.

Group photo from the launch of the Council of Europe HELP course on Violence Against Women. © Council of Europe

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