August 3rd 2020, Academy of Justice in cooperation with UNDP, in their efforts for designing training program of 2021, compliant with actual training needs in the area of discrimination, conducted its following meeting with the group of judges and prosecutors of all instances and regions of Kosovo, in the Zoom platform.
During this meeting, focus was on summary of the national and international legal framework on the discrimination area and institutional tools for protection against discriminations, as well as challenges and practical problems for implementation of this legislation, with particular emphasis on the Law on Discrimination and the Law on gender equality in Kosovo.
Discussions raised several cases of discrimination for which indictments have been raised and still did not reach their epilogue or still haven’t been dealt because of the case overload, and due to the fact that they are not classified as urgent cases. The cases mainly were initiated by persons with limited abilities. Also, the judges stressed that the courts still haven’t been challenged with discrimination cases, and this is because of the culture and tradition. Nevertheless, in these discussions they emphasized the need for specialized trainings and drafting of manuals and handbooks for the procedural aspects, on how to approach cases that relate to discrimination.
In this meeting, the groups draw recommendations for strengthening the judges, prosecutors and official’s capacities who work in this area, in order to be more efficient and functional for protection against discrimination. Furthermore, the participants were required to fill and send the questionnaire for training needs assessment, specifying concrete topics based on the most frequent cases of discrimination that they face in practice.
Participants in this meeting were judges of the Supreme Court, the Appeals Court, and Basic Courts, as well as prosecutors from Basic Prosecution of Mitrovica and Prishtina.
03-08-2020