Two regional judicial training seminars are being held in Dushanbe from September 25 to 28.

According to the European Union Delegation to Tajikistan, the training seminars are organized by the EU-Central Asia Rule of Law Platform, with support from the Supreme Court of the Republic of Tajikistan, for a group of 25 Tajik judges.

The first seminar reportedly aims at conveying methodology on court decision drafting in civil and administrative law cases, while the second seminar focuses on court decision drafting in criminal law cases.

Both seminars are part of a regional training program based on methodology developed by the Platform.  It presents general guidelines and principles for drafting court decisions and should serve as a reference material for judicial professionals.  It includes developments specific to the main categories of court decisions: civil, criminal and administrative, and is based on the current relevant laws of each partner country, with numerous references to their case-law.  It also builds on best international practices of court decision drafting and the principles of the fair trial and fair court decisions resulting, especially, from the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights, and from certain standards common to the Western legal tradition of rule of law.

At the Fourth Ministerial Conference (Astana, November 14-15, 2014), the Ministers of Justice of Central Asia and the European Union underlined “the need to develop, in a systematic way, programs of initial and on-going vocational training of the judiciary in the area of decision drafting, methodology, execution of court decisions, and sharing of comparative law information and best practices”.

The EU-Central Asia Rule of Law Platform project acts as a support mechanism to facilitate policy dialogue and promote the measures contributing to legal reforms in each of the Central Asian countries.

The Platform is being funded by the European Union to the amount of EUR 1,8 million and is implemented by IBF International Consulting.