Project: "Support of reforming of justice in Ukraine"

Main idea of the project - improvement of the quality of justice by means of raising of the level of professional skills of judges, in order to ensure the functioning of justice according to demands of the legal state, strengthening of legal defense of human rights and reinforcement of the trust to judicial power. The main activity of the project is the organization of the seminars for judges.
Duration of the project: 2001 - 2003 years.
Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation renders financial support of the project.

Participants:
Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation
The Ministry of Justice of Ukraine
The Supreme Court of Ukraine

Block 1 The reforming of Ukrainian justice according to European standards
Elaboration of the new approaches to the application of European principles of justice and fixation of the stable orientations in the professional legal consciousness of judges

Block 2 Humanization of the practice of infliction and execution of punishments
Aim: Humanisation of the practice of infliction and execution of punishments. Spread of the practice of application of the alternative kinds of punishments. Decrease of the number of prisoners in Ukraine.

Block 3 Efficacy of the execution of the judicial decisions: European experience
Aim: Promotion of the efficient judicial defence of the juridical physical persons' rights through the execution of judicial decisions
Duration of the project: 2004 - 2006

Participants of the project:
State department of Ukraine for the execution of punishments
State Executive service of the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine
The courts of appeal and local courts of Ukraine
The Supreme Court of Ukraine

The main goal of the project is to activate and mobilise the work of the judicial voluntary associations in Ukraine so as to strengthen the independent status of judges and to provide for a fair and impartial, people-rights oriented justice system.

The project intends to work through four components:

- legislative changes, which will be targeted at the analysis and amendment of relevant legislation to improve the status of judges with regard to the judicial independence;

- regional/oblast response model, which will design an pilot mechanisms to protect judicial independence “in the field”, at the oblast level and below;

- awareness raising and information campaign, which will aim at distribution of the European experience in this area and at informing wider groups of judge and the public of recent trends in the development of the judicial independence in Ukraine;

- establishing of a monitoring system to watch where and how often the violations of the judicial independence tales place.
As a result, the project seeks to make impact in terms of:
- a better inclusion of the opinion of the judiciary as for drafting the legislation in the area of judicial independence and court procedures;
- a ber protection of interests of judges through judicial voluntary associations;
- improvement of judges’ awareness of the international standards and principles of the judicial independence;
- better public control over the application of the concept of judicial independence.

The project will be implemented by the Centre for Judicial Studies as leading organisation in partnership with the All-Ukrainian Independent Judicial Association and the Foundation for Fair Justice, who will from an implementing consortium. The project will be carried out in close collaboration with the Council of Judges of Ukraine.

Project duration – October 2006 - September 2009

Project Description
The project promotes the principles of judicial independence and practical application of the international principles of justice in everyday practice of judges, so as to provide a sufficient basis for an efficient judicial defence of rights and freedoms in Ukraine.

Overall Goal and Project Objectives

The main goal of the project is: to activate and mobilise the work of the judicial voluntary associations in Ukraine so as to strengthen the independent status of judges and to provide for a fair and impartial, people-rights oriented justice system.
On the basis of this goal, the following project objectives have been defined for the current phase:

• to roll out the oblast-level experience of work with the regional model and communications strategies nationwide, which includes: a) design and adoption of the national-level framework document on communications for the Ukrainian judiciary and b) design, implementation and dissemination of the local-level communications strategies for the judiciary based on the experience of the piloted regional (oblast) models.;
• to disseminate the best-practice experience of the project’s previous phases and to anchor them within the Ukrainian judicial, which will includes the yearly monitoring exercise and report on the status of judicial independence in Ukraine, as well as the ToT methodology of special training programmes for the judiciary.

Activities
Major activities include:

• design and adoption of the national-level framework document on communications for the Ukrainian judiciary;
• design, implementation and dissemination of the local-level communications strategies for the judiciary based on the experience of the piloted regional (oblast) models;                                                                        
• the dissemination the best-practice experience of the project’s previous phases: the annual monitoring of the status of judicial independence in Ukraine, the methodology of the training course on judicial independence, the analysis of media with regard to information about the judiciary.
  
  Programme Information
  
  Implementing Consortium: Centre for Judicial Studies (Ukraine), Association of Judges of Ukraine
  Partners: Supreme Court of Ukraine, Council of Judges of Ukraine
  Project Region: Ukraine
  Project Duration: January 2010 – December 2012
  Links: Centre for Judicial Studies - www.judges.org.ua/
  Association of Judges of Ukraine – www.uajudges.org

The Objective of the Project is to implement measures that will hopefully reduce the number of detainees in remand prisons.

The goals of the Project are:
- To conduct an experiment at two model courts (City of Bila Tserkva and Obolonsky District Court of the City of Kyiv) in order to analyze the legal and institutional environment (analysis of court rulings) in the sphere of pre-trial detention;
- To prepare programs and conduct trainings for target groups (judges, investigators and prosecutors) on implementation of international standards and norms related to pre-trial detention into practice;
- To develop teaching guidelines on application of pre-trial detention as a measure of restraint and optimization of relevant procedures;
- To conduct a study visit to Switzerland.
Duration of the project: january 2006 - March 2008

Participants of the project:
The Supreme Court of Ukraine;
The General Office of Public Prosecutor c of Ukraine
Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine;
State Department of Ukraine for execution of Punishment.

The Swiss Development and Cooperation Agency of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (SDC) and the Swiss Cooperation Office in Ukraine (Director Ueli Muller) renders financial support of the project.
Project manager:Hans Bulmann.

Released a new joint issue of the Bulletin Council of Judges of Ukraine and the Center for Judicial Studies devoted accessibility monitoring, effectiveness and impartiality of justice in Ukraine.