The Council of Europe organised two simultaneous cascade training sessions for Turkish judges and prosecutors in Ankara on 3-5 May 2023 in the framework of the joint European Union and Council of Europe Project on International Judicial Cooperation in Criminal Matters in Türkiye. 

The event marked the start of a series of 32 training sessions expected to be delivered under the project. Interventions were carried out by rapporteur judges who had been trained earlier through the Project’s Training of Trainers activities. The sessions focused on the most common international judicial cooperation measures: mutual legal assistance (MLA) and extradition, and included important topics such as dealing with concurrent jurisdiction cases, the drafting of an MLA request, building and using networks, grounds for refusal, etc. Throughout the training, both international best practices and relevant Turkish law and practice were introduced and discussed with the participants.  

Participants actively contributed to the training sessions by sharing their practical experiences, including the challenges they face. The majority of participants reported that their knowledge of mutual legal assistance and extradition had increased as a result of the training. 

The Project “Improving International Judicial Cooperation in Criminal Matters” in Turkey is co-funded by the European Union and the Council of Europe and implemented by the Council of Europe.