Action grants to support transnational projects on judicial training covering civil law, criminal law or fundamental rights

Topic description

Scope:

1.1. Priorities and activities to be funded

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 priorities of 2018 will concentrate funding on training activities and tools for training providers, as described below, in order to:

1. tackle gaps in training for:
   a) court staff and bailiffs, for example by cross-border training activities or exchanges of good training practices, on all areas of EU civil, criminal and fundamental rights law relevant for their judicial work;
   b) 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:
   a) seminars with easy linguistic access (for example, by providing interpretation in the languages of all participants, national breakout groups or linguistic programme components) to attract also legal practitioners 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;
   b) 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;
   c) 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, in order to stimulate discussions across judicial professions about the application of EU law and contribute to a European legal culture across professional boundaries.

3. facilitate the implementation of the Regulation establishing the European Public Prosecutor office (EPPO), via the creation of training modules to train judges, prosecutors and / or lawyers – possibly in a cross-professional setting, the translation and adaptation of these modules to the specificities of the various national legal frameworks, the organisation of cross-border training activities for multipliers such as trainers – where there are guarantees that the multipliers will pass on their knowledge to the concerned legal practitioners in the Member States in a systematic way.

1.2. 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 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) 655/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 May 2014 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 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 June 2012 amending Council Directive 89/666/EEC and Directives 2005/56/EC and 2009/101/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards the interconnection of central, commercial and companies registers, which started its functionality in June 2017;
  - Regulation (EU) 2015/848 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 May 2015 on insolvency proceedings (recast);
  - Regulation (EU) 2015/2421 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 December 2015 amending Regulation (EC) No 861/2007 establishing a European Small Claims Procedure and Regulation (EC) No 1896/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 December 2006 creating a European order for payment procedure, applicable since July 2017, 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 of 6 July 2016 on promoting the free movement of citizens by simplifying the requirements for presenting certain public documents in the European Union and amending Regulation (EU) No 1024/2012;

• Legal instruments in family matters, in particular:
  - Council Regulation (EC) 2201/2003 of 27 November 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 of 24 June 2016 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 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 3 April 2014 regarding the European Investigation Order in criminal matters, applicable since 22 May 2017;
  - Council Framework Decision 2002/584/JHA of 13 June 2002 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: Framework Decision 2008/909/JHA of 27 November 2008 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 of 27 November 2008 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 of 23 October 2009 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;

• Instruments on procedural rights in criminal proceedings:
  - Directive 2012/29/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 October 2012 establishing minimum standards on the rights, support and protection of victims of crime;
  - Directive 2013/48/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 October 2013 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, applicable since November 2016; Directive (EU) 2016/343 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 9 March 2016 on the strengthening of certain aspects of the presumption of innocence and of the right to be present at the trial in criminal proceedings, applicable from 1 April 2018; Directive (EU) 2016/1919 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 October 2016 on legal aid for suspects and accused persons in criminal proceedings and for requested persons in European arrest warrant proceedings, applicable from 25 May 2019 and Directive (EU) 2016/800 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 May 2016 on procedural safeguards for children who are suspects or accused persons in criminal proceedings, applicable from 11 June 2019;
• The European Public Prosecutor's Office (EPPO):
  - Council Regulation (EU) 2017/1939 of 12 October 2017 implementing enhanced cooperation on the establishment of the European Public Prosecutor's Office ('the EPPO');

Anti-money laundering:

• Notably Directive (EU) 2015/849 of the European Parliament and of the Council of20 May 2015 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 of 28 November 2008 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, 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 a convincing evidence-based training needs' assessment, showing that more training is needed for the proper application of EU law in the suggested field.

1.3. Target group

In general, 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.

1.4. 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 or on-going projects but that act in complementarity or that innovate.

1.5. Description of the activities

Projects must be transnational and involve organisations from at least two participating countries. In addition the training activities implemented by each project must include participants (trainees) from different participating countries.

As far as nothing more specific is indicated in the priorities, 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 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);

• 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 (except for newly appointed judges and prosecutors for whom the equivalent activity is funded via the operating grant of the EJTN),

• joint study visits to EU courts by legal practitioners (other than judges/prosecutors, already covered by the operating grant of the EJTN) from as many different Member States as possible;

• creation of training content, whether for presential learning, blended learning or e‑learning, ready-to-use either by trainers or by practitioners for self-learning;

• translation and updating of existing training material;

• tools for training providers (for example: train-the-trainers events, tools to support the organisation of training in other Member States, etc.), including to facilitate their cooperation at EU-level (for justice professions other than judges/prosecutors, who are already covered by the operating grant of the EJTN).

If nothing else is indicated in the priority, the 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 "legal systems of the Member States" (in 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.

Activities must take place in countries participating to the JUSTICE Programme to be eligible for funding (See eligibility criteria and Annex on Financial Provisions).

1.6. Training methodology

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

1.7. Duration

The initial project duration should not exceed 30 months.

1.8. Dissemination strategy

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

The projects should plan that created training material are made available to the DG Justice and Consumers^[4] for upload in the training section of the European e-Justice Portal^[5].

1.9. 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]

[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

[4]JUST-JUDICIAL-TRAINING@ec.europa.eu

[5]Upon the discretion of DG Justice and Consumers.