On February 18th 2015, Kosovo Judicial Institute with the support of UNICEF conducted two-day training on “Protection of the rights of children without parental care”.
Purpose and importance of this topic is on the fact that number of children without parental care is continuously increasing and role of the court and of the guardianship authority in treating these cases is crucial.
This training aimed increase of professional capacities and practical skills of participating judges on correct interpretation of legal provisions related to the role of the court and of the guardianship authority in the procedure for protection of the rights of children without parental care, as well as analyze circumstances for ruling on the best interest of the child.
Adoption was elaborated as a special form of care for children without parental custody, including role and importance of adoption and competencies of the court pertaining to ruling on adoption cases. In this context, the applicable - local and international - legislation regulating adoption was elaborated. The training also focused on requirements related to who can be the adoptee and adopter according to provisions of the Kosovo Family Law, initiation and review of the proposal for establishing adoption, as well as procedure and participants in the court proceeding for establishing adoption.
On the second day of training, the work focused mainly on topics related to placement of the child to another family as a social form of organization for children without parental care, and role of the Social Welfare Center which underlined the importance and need for raising human and material resources, as well as professional growth of the social center officials.
The Guardianship, as an institute with social features, then the guardianship body as a competent authority for protection of the children rights, and ways of exercising guardianship were other areas covered in this training. This session provided discussion also in relation to exercise, suspension, limitation and removal of the parental right.
Particular emphasis was placed on ways of inquiry and communication methods of the court with children in judicial proceedings, with the purpose of preliminary preparation of children, which raised the need for conducting training for judges about the way of examining children in court proceeding.
The training was conducted with interactive discussion followed by case law examples and practical assignments.
Beneficiaries of this training were judges of Basic Courts.
18-02-2015