European cooperation on judicial training for court staff and bailiffs. Regional seminars with national breakout sessions and other examples

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1 European cooperation on judicial training for court staff and bailiffs Regional seminars with national breakout sessions and other examples Brussels, 30 October 2015 Jean-Philippe Rageade Deputy Director Academy of European Law

2 About the Academy of European Law ERA is a non-profit public foundation set up in 1992 at the initiative of the European Parliament whose patrons include almost all EU member states. ERA provides training in EU law to legal practitioners (judges, prosecutors, lawyers in private practice, business and public administration). 162 face-to-face events for ca. 7,500 participants in Genuine European approach vs. national approach? Regional seminars with national breakout sessions. Examples of large scale projects implemented by ERA for legal professionals, which could be a source of inspiration for cross-border training of court staff and bailiffs?

3 Linguistic obstacles in cross-border training Preliminary remark European Parliament Study on Judicial Training (2011) conducted by ERA and EJTN: Survey of judges, prosecutors and court staff across EU 81% of respondents speak some English as a foreign language But only 17% can use English proficiently, i.e. as an effective medium for training English can function as lingua franca but is no substitute for training in native languages Many respondents perceive focus on language skills as restricting access to European training programmes Interpretation: not always cost-effective and not always effective in relation to the training method

4 Cross-border training on EU criminal law for defence counsel Seminar projects organised in cooperation with the European Criminal Bar Association (ECBA) and various national Bar Associations from The projects were co-financed by the European Commission. 15 seminars for ca. 420 defence lawyers from all the EU. Each seminar focused on defence lawyers from a different cluster of countries. Methodology: the seminars consisted of lectures in plenary on Fridays afternoon with simultaneous interpretation provided English/French + language of the hosting country. National workshops on Saturdays where no interpretation was needed.

5 Regional training on EU civil/criminal justice instruments for judges/prosec. Seminar projects organised in cooperation with the judicial schools of the V4 (CZ, HU, PL, SK) since 2013 for their judges and prosecutors and co-financed by the European Commission. Training always offered in two languages: English and the language of the hosting Member State. Contribution of one EU and 4 national legal experts Practical exercises: 4 working groups coordinated by the national experts, enabled the use of the participants native languages.

6 To which extent do these projects respond to concrete needs? Why are these best practices (COM/EJTN)? Because it enables direct correlation between EU instruments and practical application in national context because it ensures active participation in native language because it is cost-effective. Transferability of the project?

7 Development of multilingual training materials tested at national level (1/2) Large-scale project implemented by ERA since 2014 in the area of cross-border cooperation in civil matters. This project is co-financed by the European Commission. In partnership with sixteen national judicial training bodies and bar associations from fifteen EU Member States. Main objective: to develop a set of training materials to aid legal practitioners to apply actively and efficiently the EU acquis in the area of Civil Justice. The training materials in this project consist exclusively of case studies developed by 3 EU experts.

8 Development of multilingual training materials tested at national level (2/2) Coordinating meeting with national experts appointed by the project partners. 23 seminars aimed at ca. 600 legal practitioners from all over the EU are being organised. These seminars allow for testing the materials with judges/lawyers at a purely national level, and in local language. At the end of the project (March 2016) all the case studies will be made available on the ERA and EJTN websites in the following languages: Bulgarian, Croatian, English, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovenian and Spanish.

9 Free resources and training materials on the ERA website

10 Thank you very much for your attention! Jean-Philippe Rageade ERA Deputy Director