25 newly appointed judges enhanced their reasoning skills within the initial training programme organised by the Council of Europe held from 14 to 16 June 2023 in Sarajevo, in cooperation with the Judicial and Prosecutorial Training Centres in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The trainings were delivered in accordance with the newly developed Human Rights Training Curriculum for Initial and Continuous Training of Judges and Prosecutors. prepared under the Project “Initiative for Legal Certainty and Efficient Judiciary in Bosnia and Herzegovina – Phase III”. The curriculum consists of 14 modules, including also the online learning methodology of the Council of Europe HELP platform, and is primarily intended for initial training for the legal associates and newly appointed judicial office holders, but it is also applicable for continuous training. It applies a special adult learning methodology focused on knowledge and presentation skills.

The training was focused on two modules of the Curriculum: Reasoning of civil judgments and Reasoning of criminal judgments for the purpose of improving judges’ drafting and analytical skills while fully exercising their role in upholding human rights the domestic level. The success of the training was assessed in accordance with the Council of Europe’s Methodology for Evaluation of Human Rights Training, which is integrated into the Curriculum.

This training is a part of the Council of Europe effort to provide its support to domestic judges to meet their obligation in providing detailed reasoning to their judgments while fulfilling the requirements imposed by the ECHR standards.

The activities were carried out within the project “Initiative for Legal Certainty and Efficient Judiciary in Bosnia and Herzegovina – Phase III”.