Final Conference held

"Capacity building for judicial reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina" final event marks the end of a successful project.
02.08.2016

Human Dynamics 34-month project, “Capacity building for judicial reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina” held its final conference in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina.  The event, held on 21 July, marked a successful conclusion to a project that has engaged over 30 staff and produced 64 outputs.

Representatives from the EU Delegation, the beneficiaries and other interested stakeholders attended the final conference. The event was well attended, despite occurring during the traditional holiday season.  The conference also received considerable media attention, with the national television and print media covering the event.

The conference highlighted the achievements’ of the project.  The project focussed on improving the internal and external organisation and the non-judicial staff functions of the Judicial and Prosecutorial Training Centres (JPTC) and the Brcko District Judicial Commission.  Separate reform plans were shaped to meet the needs of each of the institutions. The team performed detailed gap assessments, a feasibility analysis, and applied all relevant tools in order to discern the best possible programme to support the judiciary. The results of this careful analysis were two unique training programmes that were highlighted during conferences as having the individual needs of each organisation.

Our team delivered three train the trainer programmes to 55 participants on certain areas of criminal and civil law that needed further enhancing.  They also taught the staff how to apply a methodology to identify training priorities in the future, as well as developing guidelines to ensure the quality of developed training materials.  To embed the knowledge from the training a handbook was published, and to ensure future trainings are delivered at the highest quality, a curricular was crafted to meet local needs. 

Our team was able to elaborate sufficient content and train enough trainers that the legacy of this project will be a step change improvement in the quality of the training delivered.  This shall have a lasting impact on the capacity of the beneficiaries.

A Steering Committee Meeting occurred on the same day to celebrate achievements the project and helped in designing a way forward for the justice training institutions.  Following this successful event, the project formally concluded at the end of July 2016.

Oliver Mader, the Project Director stated, “The project was 100% successful, reaching all of its results.  We conclude the project with fully engaged beneficiaries, who pledged to take into account all recommendations provided by the Project in their strategies and in their everyday work. We are grateful to have received plenty expressions of gratefulness and appreciation from the side of the beneficiaries’ and of the EU Delegation as our client.  Where we had seen some reluctance in the very beginning of the Project, all stakeholders are now interested in applying the training models and in continuing to deliver reform for the benefit of an effective justice system. Justice is ranking high on the priorities of development within the accession process of Bosnia and Herzegovina to the EU.”

Chloé Berger, Head of Operations Section for Justice, Home Affairs, and Public Administration Reform at the EU Delegation to Bosnia and Herzegovina noted that the country continued to face challenges in ensuring a truly independent, professional judiciary.

She added however that “this project has achieved a huge amount of results and we hope that the findings and recommendations will be taken forward by the beneficiaries – the judicial and prosecutorial training centres of the Federation of BiH and Republika Srpska, all the Ministries of Justice, the Brcko District Judicial Commission and BiH High Judicial and Prosecutorial Council (HJPC)’’.