The Council of Europe and the European Union launched, in co-operation with national partners, the project “Support to further strengthening the efficiency and quality of the judicial system in the Republic of Moldova”, part of the second phase of the Partnership for Good Governance (2019-2021). The project’s kick-off and first Steering Group meeting were held on 10 December 2019, in the premises of the National Institute of Justice of the Republic of Moldova. The events hosted partners and justice sector stakeholders, including representatives of the Ministry of Justice, Superior Council of Magistracy, National Institute of Justice and National Union of Bailiffs of Moldova. The event agenda included an official launching open to the press, as well as sessions dedicated to discussions on the objectives, relevance of the project, and to a detailed coordination of future activities.
The 24-month project will assist Moldovan authorities to improve the functioning of the justice system through strengthened efficiency and quality of courts, and a better system of enforcement of court decisions. Its aim is to facilitate a system for monitoring the progress of judicial reforms and to allow the adoption of justice sector policies based on objective information about the workload and performance of courts. Other objectives are improving the collection, reporting and analysis of data on the efficiency and quality of the courts and of the enforcement system, and consolidating the mechanisms for judicial transparency and accountability.
In April 2014, the European Union and the Council of Europe agreed that targeted co-operation activities with Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Republic of Moldova, Ukraine and Belarus – the EU’s Eastern Partnership countries – would be implemented under the Partnership for Good Governance programme. The phase I of the programme (PGGI) started in 2015 and was completed in 2018; the second phase of the programme (PGGII) was launched in 2019 and will run until 2021.
These co-operation activities aim to strengthen the capacity of the Eastern Partnership countries, which are member States of the Council of Europe, with the exception of Belarus, to implement domestic reforms to bring them closer to European standards in the fields of human rights, democracy and the rule of law.
This activity was organised within the framework of the project “Support to further strengthening the efficiency and quality of the judicial system in the Republic of Moldova”, the second phase of the Partnership for Good Governance (2019-2021), jointly funded by the European Union and the Council of Europe and implemented by the Council of Europe.