The Council of Europe contributed to the promotion of non-coercive investigative interview standards in the criminal justice system in Ukraine through allocation of a grant to the NGO JustGroup. The grant, which was implemented in November-December 2022, aimed at supporting change in the investigative interview practices of prosecutors and representatives of investigative bodies through the development of the unified approach. The provided grant was used for developing a standard training program on non-coercive investigative interview for prosecutors and investigators. Likewise, guidelines on the investigative interview were finalized and prepared for publication.

The grant also supported conducting a three-day training using the developed program with the follow-up two online sessions for prosecutors, detectives of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, investigators of the State Bureau of Investigation and the National Police (overall 30 participants: 14 – female, 16 - male). The activities supported by the grant were implemented by JustGroup in close cooperation with the Prosecutors’ Training Centre of Ukraine. The developed training program as well as finalized guidelines will be further used for the continued training of prosecutors and investigators.

The grant was awarded within the framework of the Council of Europe Project “Human Rights Compliant Criminal Justice System in Ukraine”, which is part of the Council of Europe Action Plan for Ukraine 2018-2022.