Council of Europe

Current Human Rights Issues in Latvia - Annual Discussion of the Riga Graduate School of Law

Current human rights issues in Latvia will be discussed at a seminar organised by the Riga Graduate School of Law and the Soros Foundation in Latvia with the participation of the Council of Europe. ECHR standards concerning detention facilities, police control and the rights of the child will be discussed and the HELP Programme will be presented. The aim is to discuss the introduction of the HELP distance-learning courses and methodology in the training for judges, prosecutors and lawyers.

Programme

39 judges and prosecutors from different countries of the EU will be able to participate in the seminar Effective Remedies, Lengthy Proceedings and Access to Justice in the EU: Ensuring the right to a fair trial under the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU and the European Convention of Human Rights, organized on 28.02-01.03.2013 in Cracow, Poland, by the National School of Judiciary and Public Prosecution, within the framework of the European Judicial Training Network.

The Council of Europe office in Sarajevo is organising two seminars for judges and prosecutors with the Centres for Judicial and Prosecutorial Training of the Federation of BiH and the Republika Srpska. The two-day seminars will cover defamation versus freedom of expression topics with special attention paid to Article 10. of the European Convention on Human Rights. Mr. Frederic Gras, a counsellor from France and Ms. Sevima Sali-Terzic from the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina will train participants on subject matter such as freedom of expression of artists and special groups of people such as politicians, governments, public servants, armed forces, public figures and celebrities. Moreover, the seminars will cover the abuse of the right of freedom of expression, hate speech and the parliamentary and elections context.

The Council of Europe meeting on Child-friendly Justice took place in University College Cork, Ireland, on 5 and 6 December 2012. International experts in the field met to discuss how to promote and implement the European Guidelines on Child-friendly Justice. The meeting was hosted by Professor Ursula Kilkelly, Dean of the Faculty of Law and an international children's rights scholar, together with the Children's Rights Division of the Council of Europe and with the presence of the EU children's rights co-ordinator. During the meeting, Mr Roberto Rivello, manager of the HELP Programme, made contributions to the discussions on  the future development of an e-learning course on child-friendly justice for legal professionals, in the framework of the HELP Programme.

On the web pages of the Polish Ministry of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights there are available first factsheets prepared by the Court translated into Polish. Thirteen factsheets have already been translated: Child protection, Protection of journalistic sources, Detention and Mental Health, Prisoners health rights, Right to one`s own image, Violence against Women, Environment, Sexual Orientation, Terrorism, Detention conditions and treatment of prisoners, Expulsion and extradition, Police arrest/assistance of a lawyer, Death penalty abolition. Further translations are planned.

The Human Rights House Network (HRHN) is the international organization aimed to protect, empower and support human rights organisations locally, and unite them in an international network of Human Rights Houses. To help achieve this, HRHN has developed four strategic programmes: building networks and institutions, strengthening capacity and sharing knowledge, advocacy and raising awareness, fundraising and strategy.

Organised with the assistance of the Admissibility Info Point for Albania, Ms Erinda Meli and the HELP Focal Point for Albania, Ms Mirela Bogdani, along with expert member of the Admissibility project’s Working Group, Ms Elira Kokona, and in collaboration with the Albanian Magistrates’ School, this event will take place in the Albanian Magistrates’ School, Tirana, Albania on Wednesday 24 October.

In the framework of the Albanian Chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, with the initiative of the State Advocate Office, and the support of the Ministry of Justice, in Tirana, on 5 October 2012 has been held the Workshop “On certain aspects of the implementation of the European Convention on Human Rights at national level”.

This initiative comes in the framework of the obligation arising by the Brighton Declaration, where one of its main points achieved was the implementation of the European Convention at national level. The Workshop aimed the exchange of experiences and views of the member states, referring to their domestic practices to implement efficiently and accurately the European Convention.

The judgment on the case Rrapo v. Albania (application no. 58555/10 dated 25 September 2012, deals with two aspects, whether the applicant’s extradition to the respondent state gave rise to a breach of Articles 2, 3 and Article 1 of Protocol No. 13 to the Convention on account of a risk of the death penalty being imposed and whether the Albanian authorities’ non-compliance with the ECtHR’s decision on interim measure constituted a violation of Article 34 of the Convention.