Call for proposals for action grants to support transnational projects on judicial training covering civil law, criminal law or fundamental rights - JUST-JTRA-EJTR-AG-2019

Deadline: Jun 27, 2019  
CALL EXPIRED

Priorities and activities to be co-financed

1. Priorities

The objective is to contribute to the effective and coherent application of EU law in the areas of civil law, criminal law and fundamental rights, judicial ethics and the rule of law, by helping to address the training needs of justice professionals in these fields. It also targets the specific training needs of court staff and bailiffs, as well as prison and probation staff.

The 2019 priorities will focus on training activities and tools for training providers to:

1. tackle gaps in training for:

1. court staff and bailiffs, for example by cross-border training activities or exchanges of good training practices, in all areas of EU civil, criminal and fundamental rights law relevant for their judicial work;
2. prison and probation staff, for example by cross-border training activities or exchanges of good training practices, on EU law and fundamental rights relevant for their work, including on countering radicalisation to violent extremism in prison, on the minimum standards laid down by the Council of Europe or on rehabilitation programmes;

2. support the training of justice professionals, in particular via:

1. seminars with easy linguistic access (e.g. by providing interpretation in the languages of all participants, national breakout groups or linguistic programme components) to attract legal practitioners that are reluctant to participate in a seminar in a foreign legal language and therefore have not yet participated in from cross-border training activities;
2. cross-border training activities for multipliers, such as judicial trainers or EU law court coordinators, where there are guarantees that the multipliers will pass on their knowledge to other legal practitioners in a systematic way;
3. training activities with participants from at least two different justice professions, such as judges/prosecutors, judges/lawyers, lawyers/notaries, courts staff/bailiffs, court experts/court interpreters, prison/probation staff, to stimulate discussions across judicial professions about the application of EU law and contribute to a European legal culture across professional boundaries.

Topics

For priority area 2), the activities may cover EU civil, criminal and fundamental rights law, legal systems of the Member States, judicial ethics and the rule of law, knowledge of cross-border IT tools and linguistic skills of legal practitioners in areas with particular added value.

An evidenced-based training needs assessment for the topic of the training activity is mandatory.

Priority will notably be given to training on the following topics:

Civil law

- Legal instruments in civil and commercial matters, in particular:

• Regulation (EU) No 655/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing a European Account Preservation Order procedure to facilitate cross-border debt recovery in civil and commercial matters;
• The Business Registers Interconnection System (BRIS), established in Directive 2012/17/EU as regards the interconnection of central, commercial and companies registers;
• Regulation (EU) 848/2015 of the European Parliament and of the Council on insolvency proceedings (recast);
• Regulation (EU) 2015/2421 of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Regulation (EC) No 861/2007 establishing a European Small Claims Procedure and Regulation (EC) No 1896/2006 creating a European order for payment procedure Regulation (EU) 2015/2421, in particular the new provisions on service of documents and on oral hearings;
• Regulation (EU) 2016/1191 of the European Parliament and of the Council on promoting the free movement of citizens by simplifying the requirements for presenting certain public documents in the European Union;

- Legal instruments in family matters, in particular:

• Council Regulation (EC) No 2201/2003 concerning jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in matrimonial matters and the matters of parental responsibility (Brussels IIa);
• Council Regulations (EU) 2016/1103 and 2016/1104 implementing enhanced cooperation in the area of jurisdiction, applicable law and the recognition and enforcement of decisions in matters of matrimonial property regimes and of the property consequences of registered partnerships;

Criminal law

- Judicial cooperation instruments in criminal matters:

• Directive 2014/41/EU regarding the European Investigation Order in criminal matters;
• Council Framework Decision 2002/584/JHA on the European arrest warrant and the surrender procedures between Member States, including the 2017 European Commission Handbook on the European Arrest Warrant and the evolving case-law of the Court of Justice of the EU;
• The Council Framework Decisions on detention and transfer of prisonersFramework Decision 2008/909/JHA on the application of the principle of mutual recognition to judgments in criminal matters imposing custodial sentences or measures involving deprivation of liberty for the purpose of their enforcement in the European Union, Council Framework Decision 2008/947/JHA on the application of the principle of mutual recognition to judgments and probation decisions with a view to the supervision of probation measures and alternative sanctions and Council Framework Decision 2009/829/JHA on the application, between Member States of the European Union, of the principle of mutual recognition to decisions on supervision measures as an alternative to pre-trial detention; as well as the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights on pre-trial detention;
• Regulation (EU) 2018/1805 of the European Parliament and of the Council on the mutual recognition of freezing orders and confiscation orders.

- Instruments on procedural rights in criminal proceedings:

• Directive 2012/29/EU establishing minimum standards on the rights, support and protection of victims of crime;
• Directive 2013/48/EU on the right of access to a lawyer in criminal proceedings and in European arrest warrant proceedings, and on the right to have a third party informed upon deprivation of liberty and to communicate with third persons and with consular authorities while deprived of liberty;
• Directive (EU) 2016/343 on the strengthening of certain aspects of the presumption of innocence and of the right to be present at the trial in criminal proceedings;
• Directive (EU) 2016/1919 on legal aid for suspects and accused persons in criminal proceedings and for requested persons in European arrest warrant proceedings;
• Directive (EU) 2016/800 on procedural safeguards for children who are suspects or accused persons in criminal proceedings;

- Council Regulation (EU) 2017/1939 implementing enhanced cooperation on the establishment of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (‘the EPPO’);

Anti-money laundering:

• Notably Directive (EU) 2015/849 on the prevention of the use of the financial system for the purposes of money laundering or terrorist financing (4th Anti-Money Laundering Directive);

Fundamental rights

• The scope and application of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU;
• Council Framework Decision 2008/913/JHA on combating certain forms and expressions of racism and xenophobia by means of criminal law.

Proposals outside of these priority topics

Since the assessment of European judicial training needs cannot be solely conducted at EU level and is mainly done nationally and even locally, the above policy priorities are indications of possible topics of supported projects. Proposals not in line with these topics, may still be awarded grants if the applicants can justify their training topics by a convincing evidence-based training needs assessment, demonstrating that more training is needed for the proper application of EU law in the suggested field.

Target group

This call supports training of members of the judiciary and judicial staff, i.e. judges, prosecutors, court officers, other legal practitioners associated with the judiciary, such as lawyers, notaries, bailiffs, insolvency practitioners and mediators, as well as court interpreters and translators, prison and probation staff.

Distribution of financial support between different topics

Priority will be given to projects that do not duplicate existing training material or on-going projects but that are complementary or innovative.

A fair balance between topics and/or target audience may be sought.

2. Description of the activities

The training activities implemented by each project must include participants (trainees) from different eligible countries.

This call will fund training activities such as:

• the organisation of interactive, practice-oriented seminars (including implementation of training modules created by the European Commission on EU legislation in civil law^[1]);
• multilateral exchanges between justice professionals (except for judges and prosecutors whose training bodies are members of the European Judicial Training Network (EJTN) and may thus take part in the exchanges organised by the EJTN);
• cross-border initial training activities (face-to-face activities or exchanges), covering as many eligible countries as possible, to create a common European legal culture from the start of entering a legal profession (except for newly appointed judges and prosecutors for whom the equivalent activity is funded via EJTN's operating grant);
• joint study visits to EU courts for legal practitioners (other than judges/prosecutors, already covered by EJTN's operating grant) from as many different eligible countries as possible;
• creation of training material, whether for presential learning, blended learning or e-learning, ready-to-use either by trainers or by practitioners for self-learning;
• update, translation and/or adaptation of training material to national seetings;
• tools for training providers (e.g train-the-trainers events, tools to support the organisation of training in other eligible countries) including to facilitate their cooperation at EU-level (for justice professions other than judges/prosecutors, who are already covered by EJTN's operating grant).

Unless otherwise stated under the relevant priority, the activities can take place in the context of initial training (induction-period) or continuous training of the participants (e.g. training activities to familiarise newly appointed legal practitioners with EU legislation and judicial cooperation instruments; or more specialised training activities for practicing legal practitioners).

Projects targeting "legal systems of the Member States" (under priority 2) should cover the legal systems which have particular relevance for the participants and involve experienced legal practitioners who will be able to share experiences and compare practices of application of EU legal instruments.

Training methodology

Applications should notably take into account recommendations from the Advice for training providers of DG Justice and Consumers^[2] or expand good practices^[3] identified by the EU pilot project on European Judicial Training to other Member States or justice professions.

Duration

The initial project duration should not exceed 30 months.

Dissemination strategy

The funded projects should have a useful strategy ensuring that the training developed can be taken up by other training providers and/or made accessible to other justice practitioners.

Activities must take place in countries participating to the Justice Programme to be eligible for funding.

3. Expected results

• Increased knowledge of EU civil, criminal and fundamental rights instruments among legal practitioners.
• Improved mutual trust between legal practitioners in cross-border judicial cooperation.
• Improved cooperation of training providers of the different legal professions.
• Increased awareness on the added value and scope of application of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights among justice professionals thereby strengthening fundamental rights protection across the EU.

[1]https://e-justice.europa.eu/content_civil_law-254-en.do

[2]Advice for training providers on the European e-Justice Portal: https://e-justice.europa.eu/content_training_material-252-en.do?clang=en

[3]Good judicial training practices on the European e-Justice Portal: https://e-justice.europa.eu/content_good_training_practices-311-en.do