Action grants to support European judicial training

Deadline: Nov 16, 2016  
CALL EXPIRED

Topic Description

Priorities and activities to be funded

1. Priorities

The aim of this call is to contribute to the effective and coherent application of EU law in the areas of civil law, criminal law and fundamental rights, by covering training needs' gaps in these fields. It also targets the specific training needs of court staff in line with the conclusions of the Commission's conference on court staff training in October 2015.

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

Civil law

• Legal instruments in family matters and successions, in particular:

Regulation (EU) No 650/2012 on jurisdiction, applicable law, recognition and enforcement of decisions and acceptance and enforcement of authentic instruments in matters of successions and on the creation of a European Certificate of Succession;

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);

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

Directive 2008/52/EC on certain aspects of mediation in civil and commercial matters;

Regulation (EC) No 861/2007 establishing a European Small Claims Procedure, respectively its recast;

Regulation (EU) No 655/2014 creating a European Account Preservation Order to facilitate cross-border debt recovery in civil and commercial matters;

Regulation (EU) 2015/848 on insolvency proceedings (recast).

Criminal law

• Procedural rights in criminal proceedings:

Directive 2012/13/EU on the right to information in criminal proceedings;

Directive 2013/48/EU on the right of access to a lawyer in criminal proceedings;

• Victims' rights:

Directive 2012/29/EU establishing minimum standards on the rights, support and protection of victims of crime;

• Mutual recognition instruments:

Directive 2014/41/EU on the European Investigation Order in criminal matters (and the 2000 Mutual Legal Assistance Convention);

Council Framework Decision 2008/909/JHA on transfer of prisoners;

Council Framework Decision 2008/947/JHA on probation and alternative sanctions;

Council Framework Decision 2003/577/JHA of 22 July 2003 on the execution in the European Union of orders freezing property or evidence

Council Framework Decision 2006/783/JHA of 6 October 2006 on the application of the principle of mutual recognition to confiscation orders;

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;
• The data protection reform.

Other priority topics

The proposed training activities can also include the following topics:

• Development of linguistic skills of legal practitioners;

Projects should cover the legal terminology used in the work environment of practitioners;

• Knowledge of the legal systems of the Member States;
• Once it is released, the use of the search tool of the European Case Law Identifier (ECLI) to identify foreign judicial decisions, notably in the context of the "acte clair" doctrine of the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU).

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, policy priorities mentioned in the annual work programme are indications of possible topics of supported projects. Regarding proposals not in line with these priorities, they may still be awarded funding if applicants can justify the suggested training topics by an evidence-based needs assessment, showing that more training is needed for the proper application of EU law in the field to be covered.

Target group

The training should target members of the judiciary and judicial staff, meaning judges, prosecutors and court officers, as well as other legal practitioners associated with the judiciary, such as lawyers, notaries, bailiffs, probation officers, mediators, court interpreters and translators, who are involved in the application of the relevant instruments.

Distribution of financial support between different topics

When deciding on the allocation of grants, a fair balance between topics and/or target audience may be sought.

Moreover, priority will be given to projects that do not duplicate existing training material[1] or on-going projects but that act in complementarity or that innovate.

2. Description of the activities to be funded under this topic

The training activities implemented by each project must include participants (trainees) from different participating countries. Ideally, they should be trained together without a majority of participants from one country.

In the priority areas defined above (including those identified by a needs assessment), this call will fund activities such as:

• Organisation of interactive, practice-oriented training activities;
• Multilateral exchanges between legal practitioners (except for judges and prosecutors whose training bodies are members of the EJTN and may thus take part in the exchanges organised by the EJTN);
• Creation of training content, whether for presential learning, blended learning or e‑learning, either ready-to-use by trainers or by practitioners for self-learning;
• Tools for training providers (for example: train-the-trainers events, tools to support the organisation of training in other Member States, etc.).

Projects that roll out training modules created by the Commission on European legislation can also benefit from funding.

All these activities can take place in the context of initial training (induction-period) or continuous training of the participants (for example: training activities to familiarize newly appointed legal practitioners with EU legislation and judicial cooperation instruments; or more specialised training activities for practicing legal practitioners).

Projects targeting "Knowledge of the legal systems" should cover the legal systems which have particular relevance for the participants and involve experienced legal practitioners who will be able to compare experience and practice of application of EU legal instruments.

Projects should also aim at encouraging practitioners to follow training in a foreign language, either by providing simultaneous high-quality interpretation into their native language or by easing the participation with foreign language training (for example with an introduction to the relevant legal terminology of the topics covered prior to or at the beginning of the training activity, or with a linguistic warm-up by actively involving participants at the beginning of the training activity, etc).

Training methodology

Applications should notably take into account recommendations resulting from the Advice for training providers[2] or expand good practices[3] revealed by the EU pilot project on European Judicial Training to other Member States or legal professions.

The learning methodology must be practice-oriented and interactive for all types of training, whether face-to-face or online or otherwise. Different methodologies may be used during a training activity.

Face-to-face training activities should give room for and incite exchange of experiences of participants, possibly also outside the classrooms. They should pay particular attention to cost effectiveness.

The projects shall comprise evaluation of the training activities. They should also comprise evaluations some time after the training, assessing if and how the knowledge and/or know-how acquired has been used in the daily practice of the participant (impact assessment).

Dissemination strategy

The funded projects are expected to have a clear dissemination strategy of their results, including for example dissemination of ready-to-use training material for practitioners or trainers on the European e-Justice Portal[4].

If training material or modules are developed, attention should be paid to the language in which they are developed (and/or translated) in view of their re-usability and how future up-dates of this material can be ensured. Training material that cannot be understood by itself must be complemented with explanations during the dissemination phase in order to help other training providers or trainers to re-use it.

[1]

[2]Compiled by DG Justice and Consumers upon recommendations of an expert group: https://e-justice.europa.eu/fileDownload.do?id=9f252d82-8ef4-4f6e-b562-372f9fa50096

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

[4]Training material section of the European e-Justice Portal:
https://e-justice.europa.eu/content_training_material-252-en.do