On 17 October 2017 in Tbilisi, the trainers of the High School of Justice of Georgia participated in a training needs assessment workshop on communication, facilitated by the national expert and trainer Mr Tornike Guruli. The objective of the workshop was to define the training needs of participants and prioritise the topics for the module. The module will be included in the High School of Justice curricula for the continuous training of court managers and staff.

The workshop participants – the chairman of the Kutaisi Court of Appeals, the High Council of Justice staff and the High School of Justice staff - discussed the challenges related to the interaction between the court administration and court users.

In the words of the chairman of the Kutaisi Court of Appeals, Mr Dimitri Gvritishvili: ‘The training will be designed specifically to improve the quality of interaction between citizens and the court administration. It will be beneficial for the entire court system if the High School of Justice continues delivering these kind of trainings intensively, especially to court staff in western regions of Georgia.’

As a result of the needs assessment workshop, the objectives and the preliminary agenda of the future training module were agreed, in view of preparing the Training of Trainers on the topic planned for the month of December 2017.

The activity was organised within the framework of the Council of Europe Project “Strengthening the capacity of the High School of Justice of Georgia”. This Project is funded by voluntary contributions of Bulgaria, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Norway, The Slovak Republic and Sweden to support the implementation of the Council of Europe Action plan for Georgia 2016-2019.