A kick-off meeting to the Bulgarian edition of the e-learning course on Anti-discrimination, developed under the Programme for Human Rights Education for Legal Professionals (the HELP Programme) of the Council of Europe (CoE), was organized on November 20th, 2015 at the National Institute of Justice of Republic of Bulgaria.
The training began simultaneously for two different categories of legal professionals – 37 judges and judicial assistants at Bulgarian administrative courts and 28 Bulgarian lawyers and after the joint kick-off meeting it will continue separately for each of these professional groups.
The training is being organized in collaboration with the Council of Europe. The e-learning course edition for lawyers is conducted by the Supreme Bar Council, whereas its edition for magistrates – by the National Institute of Justice within the framework of the project “Piloting HELP distance learning course on Anti-discrimination”, funded by the Fund for Bilateral Relations of Programme BG 14 “Judicial Capacity-Building and Cooperation” of the Norwegian Financial Mechanism 2009-2014.
Within the common morning session Ms. Eva Pastrana, coordinator of the “HELP in the 28” Programme introduced CoE “HELP” and “HELP in the 28” Programmes as contextualized with the enforcement of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) at the national level (in particular the scope and the main purposes of both programmes as well as their training resources for legal professionals in the field of Human Rights Protection, developed under HELP, which are freely accessible within the HELP e-learning platform), while Mr. Marc Willers, QC at the Garden Court Chambers and CoE expert made a general overview of the scope of Article 14 of the ECHR and the relevant ECtHR case-law, emphasizing on the rights of Roma.
For the afternoon session the participants in both editions of the course were divided in two groups according to their appurtenance to a certain group of legal professionals. Subject of discussion in each of the groups were the current problems that occur in the process of enforcement of the legislation, related to protection against discrimination at the national level. During the afternoon session were also examined (respectively assessed) the specific training needs of the different groups of legal professionals and participants were provided with practical information related to the organization of the e-courses. The identified tangible training needs will be taken into account during the national adaptation and implementation of the courses by the national tutors. This method of approach is an indisputable advantage of the HELP training methodology, which ensures that the courses will meet the participants' needs in the best way.
The “e-learning part” of the course on Anti-discrimination for Bulgarian magistrates will take place from November 23rd, 2015 until January 20th, 2016 and will end with a final attendance meeting, which will be held on January 22nd, 2016.
The course edition for lawyers will continue after respective adaptation of the training materials towards the specific needs of this group of legal professionals.
•Български