On 12 and 13 November, the project facilitated online mentoring session with judges and legal advisors of the Constitutional Court of Kosovo* . The session was dedicated to the organisation and functioning of the Juris Consult, a legal research unit assigned with keeping consistency and quality of the case law. Guest mentor is a prominent international expert Lawrence Early, former Jurisconsult of the European Court of Human Rights (the Court) in the period 2013-2019.
After introductory meeting with the President of the Constitutional Court of Kosovo*, Ms Arta Rama-Hajrizi, the mentoring session took two days. On the first day Mr Early conducted interactive online workshop with legal advisors of the Constitutional Court in which he introduced the composition and working methods of the Juris Consult unit of the Court. He explained its critical role in keeping consistency of the Court case law and importance of having full overview of all cases dealt with by all sections of the Court. In this respect, he emphasised that Jurisconsult of the Constitutional Court shall be assisted by lawyers in order to perform its function effectively and efficiently. More specifically, beneficiaries were interested to hear about development of the jurisprudence of the European Court over the time and practical aspects of the work of its Jurisconsult. They were provided with information about the Pilot Judgment Procedure and criteria applied for overruling the existing case law through practical examples from the experience of the Court.
The second day was reserved for the bilateral online exchanges with individual judges and a legal advisor assigned as Jurisconsult of the Constitutional Court. The specific roles of judges, lawyers and Jurisconsult staff in ensuring consistency and quality of the case law were discussed as well as their cooperation, coordination and labour division in practice. Specific attention was given to practical aspects of the filtering of cases applied by the European Court.
The Constitutional Court has recently established the position of Jurisconsult and this was the first capacity building activity aimed at its further functionalisation and integration in every-day work of the institution. Additional support to this unit of the court will be provided by the project in line with the recommendations obtained during these two days of professional exchange.
The project "Improving the Protection of European Human Rights Standards by the Constitutional Court of Kosovo*" is funded by Norway and implemented by the Council of Europe.
