On 4 November 2021, the European Commission – Council of Europe joint project “Improving the juvenile justice system in Slovenia and Strengthening the education and training of penitentiary staff” officially concluded its inception phase with the kickoff meeting that took place in Ljubljana (Slovenia) in a hybrid format.

The project aims to support Slovenian authorities in improving the juvenile justice (Component I) and penitentiary system (Component II) through a series of focused and tailored actions. Component I is implemented by the Council of Europe Children’s Rights Division in close collaboration with the Slovenian Ministry of Justice and by the end of the project it aims to achieve:

Strengthened legal and policy frameworks through the preparation of reports and analyses that will aim at the identification of issues and solutions in line with European standards and good practices;

Increased specialization of professionals through the development of targeted trainings carried out by national and international experts in the field, which will include peerto-peer trainings too.

The Minister of Justice, Mr Marjan Dikaučič, expressed his full support to the project and highlighted the importance of Council of Europe and European Union support to the criminal justice reforms.

The event, followed by a roundtable, brought together representatives of the European Commission, representatives of the relevant Council of Europe implementing departments of both DGI and DGII, as well as representatives of Slovenian authorities and stakeholders, including the Ministry of Justice, Prison Administration, the Ministry of Health, and other professionals, who had the opportunity to discuss and exchange more about the project, in view of the first Advisory Group meeting which will be held online on 26 November 2021.

This project is funded by the European Union via the Technical support instrument and implemented by the Council of Europe in cooperation with the European Commission.

For more information on the first Advisory Group meeting of component II on the dedicated webpage.