Call for proposals for action grants to support transnational projects on training of justice professionals covering civil law, criminal law or fundamental rights

Topic description

Scope:

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, as enshrined in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, judicial ethics and the rule of law related issues, by helping to address the training needs of justice professionals in these fields.

The 2020 priorities will concentrate funding on training activities and tools for training providers, as described below, in order to:

1) tackle training needs and improve cross-border cooperation of training providers for prison and probation staff, for example through cross-border training activities or exchanges of good training practices on EU law and fundamental rights relevant for their work, including on countering radicalisation leading to violent extremism in prison, on the minimum standards laid down by the Council of Europe, or on rehabilitation programmes (prison and/or probation authorities should be involved in the projects);

2) support cross-border training activities:

(a) for justice professionals, and/or

(b) 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, and/or

(c) for cross-professional training, in order to stimulate discussions across judicial professions about the application of EU law and contribute to a European legal culture across professional boundaries.

Under 2), planned training activities should be of easy linguistic access (for example, by providing interpretation in the languages of all participants, national breakout groups, translation of training materials or linguistic programme components) to attract also justice professionals to cross-border training activities that are reluctant to participate in a seminar in a foreign legal language and therefore have not been reached by previous cross-border training activities. Training activities on new EU legal instruments regarding insolvency law and training activities supporting legal professionals and practitioners to effectively engage in strategic litigation practices at national and European level with a view to strenghten the enforcement of rights under EU law including the Charter are also encouraged.

Topics

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, linguistic skills and non-legal skills’ training must be linked to training on legal issues.

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

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;
• Regulation (EU) 848/2015 of the European Parliament and of the Council on insolvency proceedings (recast); the training activities on company and insolvency law could also include training on the Business Registers Interconnection System (BRIS), established in Directive 2012/17/EU as regards the interconnection of central, commercial and companies registers;
• Directive (EU) 2019/1023 of the European Parliament and of the Council on preventive restructuring frameworks, on discharge of debt and disqualifications, and on measures to increase the efficiency of procedures concerning restructuring, insolvency and discharge of debt, and amending Directive (EU) 2017/1132 (Directive on restructuring and insolvency);
• 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) no 650/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council on jurisdiction, applicable law, recognition and enforcement of decisions and acceptance and enforcement of authentic instruments in matters of succession and on the creation of a European Certificate of Succession;

-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); training activities addressing this topic should necessarily address also the recast version, namely Regulation (EU) 2019/1111 on jurisdiction, the recognition and enforcement of decisions in matrimonial matters and the matters of parental responsibility, and on international child abduction;
• 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 prisoners: Council Framework 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;
• Council Regulation (EU) 2017/1939 implementing enhanced cooperation on the establishment of the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (‘the EPPO’):

-Instruments on procedural rights in criminal proceedings:

• Directive 2012/29/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing minimum standards on the rights, support and protection of victims of crime;
• Directive (EU) 2016/343 of the European Parliament and of the Council 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 of the European Parliament and of the Council on legal aid for suspects and accused persons in criminal proceedings and for requested persons in European arrest warrant proceedings;
• Directive (EU) 2016/800 of the European Parliament and of the Council on procedural safeguards for children who are suspects or accused persons in criminal proceedings;
• Regulation 2018/1805 of the European Parliament and of the Council on the mutual recognition of freezing orders and confiscation orders;

- 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);

Data protection

- Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data (General Data Protection Regulation);

- Directive (EU) 2016/680 of the European Parliament and of the Council on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data by competent authorities for the purposes of the prevention, investigation, detection or prosecution of criminal offences or the execution of criminal penalties, and on the free movement of such data;

Fundamental rights and the rule of law

- The scope and application of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.

- EU law requirements regarding the rule of law, including the case law of the European Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights (in particular on judicial independence).

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 the suggested training topics by a convincing evidence-based training needs’ assessment, showing 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, meaning 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

When deciding on the allocation of grants, a fair balance between topics and/or target audience shall be sought. Moreover, priority will be given to projects that do not duplicate existing training material or on-going projects but that act in complementarity or that innovate.

2. Description of the activities

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

This call will fund training activities such as:

- 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;

- cross-border initial training activities (face-to-face activities or exchanges), covering as many Member States as possible, to create a common European legal culture from the start of entering a legal profession;

- joint study visits to EU courts for legal practitioners from as many different Member States 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, in combination with the organisation of training activities;

- tools for training providers (for example train-the-trainers events, tools to support the organisation of cross-border training) including to facilitate their cooperation at EU-level.

These training activities will be funded only when there is no equivalent activity which is already covered by the operating grant of the European Judicial Training Network (EJTN).

Training activities can take place in the context of initial training (induction-period) or continuous training of the participants (for example 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" 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] of the Commission 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 shall not exceed 30 months.

Dissemination strategy

The funded projects should have an effective 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 among justice professionals on the scope of application of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and its added value in their practice.

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

[2]The 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